April 9, 2009

Editorial

Everyone who lives here knows there is a significant problem with drugs in South Boston.  We won’t bother you with the depressing numbers, because you don’t need to be convinced.  You know what’s up.

This is an editorial message from South Boston Online about the “unintended consequences” of drug usage.  Unintended consequences happen, sometimes all over the world, when people get careless about what they do.  That applies to drug use in America – big time!

Our message today is not for everyone.  For instance, this editorial is not for drug dealers.  Unfortunately, drug dealers shook hands with the devil long ago.  All we can do is warn them that their days are numbered.  Their silly clothes, gold-plated chains, and pimped-up wheels won’t be much help when the law catches up with them, or when other dealers turn on them to save their own skins.

We aren’t singling out those who habitually use drugs, either.  They need help to get into recovery, starting with professional assistance.  We can only hope that they will choose to take advantage of the help available in South Boston – excellent halfway houses, the South Boston Collaborative, the Health Center, and so on.  Recovery doesn’t happen overnight, but these places can get them onto the right road.  We wish them well.

No, our message today is aimed at two kinds of people.  The first kind are those who are thinking about trying drugs for the first time – experimenting with getting high.  Many of them are very young, and they believe “just a little won’t hurt me”.  That’s not cool, to say the least.  It’s uncool.

The second kind are the people who claim they only use drugs occasionally – the so-called “recreational” drug users.  They say to themselves, and to anyone else who’ll listen, “I’m not hurting anybody.  I have a right to do what I want.”  Well, guess again.  Actually, because of “unintended consequences”, the recreational users are even more totally uncool – like, to the max!

Let’s take a look at the “unintended consequences” of American drug usage along our border with Mexico.  The drugs that cross the border into the U.S. to supply American users are worth maybe as much as $20 billion.  That’s more than enough to outfit an army, and that is just what has happened.

Over the last several years, 10,000 people have been killed along the border because of drug wars.  Many of these were innocent bystanders, law enforcement officers, and even missionaries and their families.  The money to buy guns for the murderers was money paid to dealers by drug users in the States.  This money finds its way back to the arch-criminals running the drug cartels south of the border, who then organize underground armies of terrorists.

If you are a recreational drug user, your drug money is directly responsible for this slaughter.  If you are thinking about using drugs for the first time, please recognize the “unintended consequences” if you go ahead and use.  The money you pay the dealer may kill someone.  Rent the DVD of “No Country for Old Men” before you decide to pick up, if you want to see an accurate picture of what goes on along our border.

Let’s get a little closer to home.  If you are thinking about using drugs or call yourself a “recreational user”, do you know anyone in the Army?  In the Marines?  Possibly a friend, a cousin, or even your brother?  Have you heard that U.S. troops in Afghanistan may be increased from 30,000 to 60,000 later this year?

Afghanistan currently grows 90% of the opium poppies in the world.  A lot of the money generated by this illegal crop comes from selling heroin and other opiates in America.  Much of this money finds its way back to the Taliban; it provided them with weapons to kill around 1,000 NATO soldiers last year.  “Unintended consequences” in this case could include the death of a friend or relative.

In other words, the drug money you spend in South Boston may buy the bullet that kills a U.S. soldier from South Boston stationed in Afghanistan.  Now how uncool is that? 

Before you decide to buy any illegal substance, please ask yourself, “What’s the real price of getting high, of ‘having fun’”?