BS: Role Model Drug users

Subject: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Pro Life
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 07:21 AM

A United Nations report is calling for tougher punishments for drug-using celebrities such as Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse.

Not a day goes by you read some story about celebrities caught on film or staggering onto stage full of drugs.

Authorities are being too lenient on stars,it sends out the wrong message to teenagers.

They get more lenient responses by the judiciary and law enforcemen.
There should not be any difference between a celebrity who is breaking the law and non-celebrities.

Not only does it give the wrong messages to young people, who are often quite impressionable, but the wider public become cynical about the responses to drug offenders.


Authorities should ensure that public celebrities who violate drug laws are made accountable.

All I ever read is some judge telling that weed Doherty, next time I will send you to prison, when is next time ?

Kate Moss has saw her public profile gain a boast due to her involvement in drugs.

---

Please remember to use one consistent name when you post. If you post under a variety of names, you risk having all your posts deleted.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 05 Mar 08 - 07:43 AM

In the end, it's each individual's prerogative to mess up their lives if that's what they want to do. Some do it with drugs, some with alcohol, some with overeating and some with self- loathing.

Far worse than these are the ones who arrogate to themselves the right to mess up other peoples lives- with bullets, fast cars, hate, physical or sexual abuse, abuse of power, bullying and lying. Of course, there is sometimes an overlap between the two.

Lets sort out the second lot first, Doherty is rich enough to fund his own tratment. He can pop himself up to cloud level, for all I care - as long as he's chauffeur driven.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Cop-on
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 06:36 AM

I'm fed up with celebrities appearing on chat shows telling us of their drug habits and how they have reformed. The are praised and applauded and a week later they are in the news again for drug related activites.

---

Please remember to use one consistent name when you post. If you post under a variety of names, you risk having all your posts deleted.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Beer
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 07:07 AM

I'll repeat as I have said before in some other thread. There is something wrong with people who go on these T.V. talk shows and air their dirty laundry.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: jacqui.c
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 08:48 AM

I think you're right GUEST,Pro Life.

Anyone who makes their money targeting an audience of young people should, IMHO, be aware of the responsibility that they have taken on. The reason that they can afford these excesses and the subsequent drying out treatments is mainly because of their young fans. These kids look up to their idols, who are lauded by the media as being next door to God, until they fall flat on their faces. In return for the advantages that that audience base gives they should be setting a good example to that audience.

Problem there is that the kids will copy their idols in most things, even to the extent, for some, of drinking and drug taking. 'Amy Winehouse does it - how can it be wrong?'

Maybe if they set a better example there might be less of the problems that PMB refers to.

I do thing that a stronger deterrent for those who have an influence on the young is in order - if nothing else it might show the kids the consequences of that type of behaviour.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Flash Company
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 10:12 AM

Anyone out there read 'Really the Blues' by Mezz Mezzrow?
I did in the late '50s. This is a tome in complete praise of marijuana,
but certainly did not have the effect of making me into a user. The thing is, although Mezz is still praising pot right to the last page, he also details the way it led him to opium, and the ordeal of 'cold turkey' to get straight again. No Thanks!
Someone said in one of the papers today that anyone who thinks that either Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse in their present state are 'glamorous' must be using a different dictionary to the rest of us

FC

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: pdq
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 10:32 AM

At one time, basketball player Charles Barkley was making the news for drinking, womanizing and fist fights.

When asked if he thought his behavior made him a good role model for his younger fans, Barkley retorted:
"I'm not a role model, I'm a basketball player".

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 11:21 AM

I kind of agree with the Barkley thinking. Youngsters may well idolize - and idealize - the celebrities that are pushed on them so relentlessly. I think it is sad and cynical, because it is the entertainment industry that is doing it - and only in order to make money.

However. When it becomes known that the celebrity is a user, it is up to the parents of those targeted youngsters to stay current with the situation and to point out the consequences, whether the consequences are swinging-door rehab centers, court appearances, late night talk show ridicule or death itself.

IMO

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 11:39 AM

I agree with Ebbie but I still think they belong in jail for breaking the law - like every kid picked up on the streets or at a party whose parents don't have the money or the lawyers to get them off and into temporary rehab.

As to dealers - I believe we should have open season on them, from the smallest to the kings. Maybe even a bounty for killing one.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 11:48 AM

I agree, Sins.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:01 PM

"As to dealers - I believe we should have open season on them, from the smallest to the kings. Maybe even a bounty for killing one."

My son was what you call a 'dealer'. He occasionally sold stuff to people because:-

1) he'd been ensnared into the drugs scene himself and, at the age of 15, needed money to pay for his own supply - money which he had no other means of obtaining.
2) he was terrified of the guy who gave him the stuff and who insisted with a baseball bat that he go out and sell it.

I think that makes him deserving of an element of sympathy snd understanding, not summary execution. And, of course, if your brand of 'justice' had been meted out to him, he would never have had the opportunity to become the reformed character he now is.

I understand where you're coming from, Sinsull and Ebbie, but sometimes it's a good idea to engage the brain before making sweeping generalisations.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: jacqui.c
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:07 PM

The problem is that a lot of these kids don't have parents who are going to watch out for them that way, which is, maybe, why they idolise these celebrities in that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:25 PM

I remember when Bert Jansch brought out It Don't Bother Me - there was a packet of gold leaf fags on the the table on the album cover. All of us dumb little folkie kids started smoking gold leaf. i was 15 0r 16 at the time. You can't really legislate for kids being daft. When you're a kid, its part of the job description.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Beer
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:51 PM

Hell I was smoking at 9. It was the thing to do because other kids were doing it.
Cigarettes that is.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: akenaton
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:52 PM

Bravely said Backwoodsman, there is no simple answer to the problems of drug abuse and those who scream "death to the dealers" have no comprehension of drug addiction or dealing with the consequences.
In our area there has been a police purge on street dealers.
The addicts who can't or won't go on the methadone programme are desperate. Prices have gone through the roof and young girls are prostitutiing themselves to get their fix.

Does anyone care ................do they fuck!!
When it happens to your own son or daughter......then you'll care.......Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Peace
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:56 PM

It's a sad world when a kid's 'role model' is someone from the entertainment business.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Megan L
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 12:59 PM

The question is Sinsull what do we cut of to prove we bagged one?

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 01:35 PM

"...staggering onto stage full of drugs." Half the time it's booze anyway. So are these would-be vigilantes on for burning down supermarkets?

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:00 PM

Thanks Ake.

It's a difficult one, and there's no easy answer. But whatever, murder is murder, and I find it appalling that someone would suggest it as a remedy.

Many drug-abusers (who generally become involved in drugs at a very young age, influenced and encouraged by much older, and very cunning, adults) resort to dealing on some level in order to provide for their own needs AND to avoid severe 'punishment' by those same adults who have taken control of them.

I strongly suspect that, if Sinsull and Ebbie made the awful discovery, as I did, that one of their children was involved in drug-use and/or dealing, their attitude and their solution to the problem would be VERY different the the one above.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:09 PM

Wrong, Backwoodsman. Had you read any of my posts over the years you would know that my son was involved in serious drugs by the age of 16 and a dealer by 18. I WOULD NOT MOURN THE LOSS OF HIS FIRST DEALER NOR WOULD i BLAME THE PARENTS OF THE CHILDREN HE HAS DESTROYED WITH DRUGS IF THEY TOOK HIM DOWN.
bEFORE i GO ANY FURTHER - i LOVE MY SON. i PRAY EVERY DAY FOR HIS RECOVERY. aND RESIGN MYSELF EVERY NIGHT TO HIS DEATH WHICH WILL BE VIOLENT.
dAMN cAPSLOCK!
dIDN'T SEE IT THROUGH THE TEARS.
mARY

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:17 PM

Apologies Mary, I had no idea. I'll PM you.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:20 PM

No apologies necessary. We have been down the same road. Our children owe us an apology. No one else.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:33 PM

Thanks Mary. I've PM'd you all the same.
Pax.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Pro Life
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:41 PM

Stay strong, stay together. It´s a hard one on any family. Still we see it´s acceptable for those on tv to escape the law,the police should act on these creeps in the public eye and set an example, but they don´t, it was like the sick remark Elton said on stage in Brazil regarding young boys. The icons of tv,film and music must be brought down first and show the older generation have teeth. youth culture today sees anyone over 30 as the problem, except for our money of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 02:58 PM

Thank you for the kind PM Mary. I've responded.
J

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Wesley S
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 03:31 PM

If it helps - I have a good friend who's son was a cocaine user and addict. He was living on the streets for a while and they suspect he dabbled in prostitution. But he cleaned up his act and has been clean for over a year now. I know that for a fact.

So it can happen. Don't give up hope.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Mar 08 - 04:40 PM

Thanks Wesley. My family and many friends are fed up and don't want to hear about my son. I am grateful for a place to talk and an ear to listen. I wish I could give up hope but it just isn't happening. This isn't a whining or pity fest. My life is very good and very happy. Hopefully, some day my son's will be too. I can't afford to lose sight of the last 20 years. It is bitterly hard but I have to put my happiness and safety before his. There are goals he has to achieve before I can allow him back into my home. Meantime, he knows that I am only a phone call away. And call he does when life gets too tough for him or he needs cash. I don't give him money ( I know where it goes) and he knows that but he still asks.
For anyone in a similar situation - if you don't laugh, you cry. So find the humor in it...even if it is black humor.
M

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 05:03 AM

Yep, me too M.

The reason I get so angry at both the "Legalise..(insert your drug of choice)..." and "Hang all druggie scum" brigade (and, I guess, why I initially bristled at your post) is that they seem to forget that each druggie is someone's tragic child, a child who used to be drug-free, and a treasure.

Few young people go down the hard-drugs road completely of their own volition - they are influenced and encouraged by highly manipulative people, and frequently ones who are much older and street-wise, who start them on the 'easy' stuff and roll them along into other things.

Sadly, the process seems to be happening very publically in the case of Amy Winehouse and her Druggie-Control-Freak Manager/Husband.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 11:19 PM

One: Anybody who claims to understand the words coming out of Charles Barkley's mouth is stretching the truth.

Two: Seriously, one does not stop being a role model just by saying "I'm not one." I remember him saying that line too, but I don't believe he's right. Kids aren't going to stop using him (weren't, that is; I guess he has quieted down) just because he said, "I'm not a role model." How many smokers' parents told them not to start smoking?

So whaddya sayda that? Huh? Huh? Huh?

B#B#, formerly CC

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Bert
Date: 07 Mar 08 - 11:26 PM

I see where you are coming from Backwoodsman, but I know of two beautiful babies who would not have been born if their Mum hadn't taken puff or two of pot to help her through the difficult pregnancies.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 02:44 AM

Don't go there Bert, there are, and have been, far too many lives wrecked by this crap - not just users, but their entire families. You may have been there, I don't know, but I suspect not. If you haven't, I doubt you are in a position to judge.
Pax
J

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Ageing Hippie
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 04:38 AM

I am using a non-constant pseudonym in the hope that it saves the young relative I am about to discuss from identification.

As a child he was hopelessly hyperactive. His mother, an occasional drug user since the 60s, who used drugs by choice and not constantly, managed to get him to take some control of his hyperactivity, rather than to use it as an excuse.

When he first went to university (reading acoustic engineering) he found it too prescriptive and dropped out. A few years later he went back to read philosophy. He found (he said) that marijuana helped him control the hyperactivity. He got a first.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 08:24 AM

Not even going to discuss with you, AH. Pot **may** have been **beneficial** to some people in certain, specific ways, but the downside to its use, and the adverse effect of consumption in an uncontrolled environment (not to mention its position as the No. 1 route of entry to use of "hard" drugs) is well-documented. Period.

My final words. It's too painful to go any further.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 10:20 AM

I am surprised by that. I know and knew a huge number of people who have smoked marijuana, to the extent that I would be suspicious that anyone who was there in the 60s and claimed never to have used marijuana was being unduly evasive. There might be some, but there were not many. Quite a lot used speed, acid, methedrine and ephedrine (sp?) and various uppers and downers. Statistically the number who suffered from addiction was insignificant.

If the situation has changed today (and I think it might have done, I think I see more young people who appear to find non-use difficult) then something has changed. It is not, surely, that drugs are more glorified - flip through any 20 sixties songs and about half will be about drugs - nor even I think that recreational drugs are more done. I think it likely that if you go raving today the majority of those present will be using or will have used E, but in the 60s if you went to any mod event the vast majority would have been up on pills.

Neither the majority of users in the 60s nor the majority of users now descend into addiction. Some modern drugs are more addictive (eg crystal meth, and crack cocaine, but I do not speak from knowledge or personal trial).

Nicotine use is down. I don't think I'd even go along with the idea that alcohol use is much up. A few loonies and a lot of social drinkers is what I see - apart of course from folk festivals where the highly addictive real ale is consumed in vast quantities. I've seen and smelt quite a lot of puff at modern folk events, but I don't see many apparently harmed or addicted.

But the inner city seems to be a different place. I don't remember the inner city being so dangerous then. Parts of Nottingham's lace market were pretty iffy - but now parts of Nottingham are VERY edgy. You needed to be careful (slightly later) of the GLC (the Greater London Casuals) but now there are parts of London that are worrying.

Is it really true that all modern youth are more at risk - or is the risk concentrated into some groups and some locations? I suspect the latter and that it is too easy to create misleading generalisations.

I have of course seen the stats that indicate that the levels of THC in modern cannabis are much higher, but I can only think of one or two people I know who cannot face the world without a spliff. I know manymore whose funciton is impaired by alcohol or health is impaired by tobacco.

Any personal tragedy is one too many, and I have seen a couple - I remember an old friend of my late wife's using our house in the 80s as a refuge in one of her (unsuccessful) attempts to quit (I can't remember if it was heroin or cocaine). Curiously she is still alive while my wife is dead - killed by nicotine and Medway Maritime Hospital. I remember one of my secretaries being very broken up when her boyfriend OD'd. But I wonder if the biggest difference is that we are older.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 12:43 PM

I've never heard any evidence that suggests that Alcohol and tobacco are not jointly 'the No. 1 route of entry to use of "hard" drugs'. Alcohol is generally the first mind-altering drug people in our societies come up against, and tobacco is generally the first smoking experience. Cannabis can be a next step, but equally well it can be glue, or ecstasy or whatever is available. (And some people start there.)

And for many people who drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes of course they never take that next step - and the same is true for cannabis. (Which doesn't of course mean that for some who stick with any of these three drugs the results may not be disastrous.)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 12:56 PM

"I would be suspicious that anyone who was there in the 60s and claimed never to have used marijuana was being unduly evasive."

I never did. Nor any other illegal substances. Never. Absolutely never. Absolute truth. No Evasion. OK?

We weren't all sheep, some of us were capable of individual thought, even in the '60s.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 01:07 PM

Not that many though (leaving aside whether that is a fair description).

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 01:08 PM

As for dealers, there are 2 kinds, the ones that sell to support there own use & those that sell purely for profit. As to the 1st they should be treated with the viewpoint of rehab, the 2nd should be treated as a career criminal, & should get the punishment due them.
It's a crap shoot as to what make one kid who smokes pot go on to harder things & another to go no further or quite altogether. Loving familys, education, need to self medicate, there are any number of individual reasons that someone decides to take the path of drug use. But the best deterrant is drug education, which is sadley lacking.
There was a war on drugs that was fought yrs ago, we lost & we gave up. There hasn't been a real war on drugs for many yrs & it doesn't look like there's one on the horizion. Just laws that deal with only the symptoms & none of the causes or preventions. Methadone programs are for control of the addicts behavior only & jail time is the other option, neither helps the situation they only hide it for the present.
There's no desire to fund for programs, education or treatment so the problem will continue to exist & the lives of all those afficted will sadley go on.
As for clebs, they should be treated just like any other poor sap that got caught walking down the same road, except that they should pay more to help fund the aid for those that can't afford help. They should also serve the same time as the poor street junkie & they more than any others should be forced to do community work with drug dependant youth. They should be made to make use of their status for the betterment of others & be forced to do it for a long time. While on the subject of time, 30 days does not qualitify as treatment. Treatment is an "in-house" program with all the trimmings & lasts for anywher from a year to a year & 1/2 before "out-house" (sorry about the pun) begins. This "I'm clean" doesn't hold water until they can say that after at least 5-10 yrs & even then they still need to walk lighty for another 5-10 yrs. It's not an easy road & most will never walk it for that long, not without a complete shift in the social. Which starts with the home, the community, the schools, the government, law enforcement, the medical community & funding.
I've only seen, & I can count them on 1 hand & have a few fingers left over, a few that made a complete recovery, without treatment (where they can say to themself I'm not an ex-addict any longer, just like everyone else). But they have a daily struggle, just like alcholics, for the rest of their lives. The amount of recovered addicts from treatment programs that I've seen probably/might (on a very good day) triple this which when one knows or has known in my case a good 1000 or so junkies & they IMHO fair far better because they don't have to fight daily for the rest of there lives, they cn because of treatment get past that. The odds would be far greater if we had a true war on drugs but we don't & that's the heartbreak for every affected family, that it doesn't have to be this way. To me it's a waste of so many good lives that the cost is nothing compared to the benifits that proper funding would bring.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 03:09 AM

"Not that many though"

You surprise me McG, I wouldn't have imagined that stereotyping was something you go in for! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Megan L
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 04:23 AM

Any victim support volunteer can tell you how it feels to sit beside some pensioner who has been mugged beaten up and put in fear of their life by someone who wanted money to feed THEIR habit. They can also tell you of the anguish felt by families who can't understand why the person they loved is now lying in the morgue because some thoughtless pig felt they could drive a car while drunk.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: alanabit
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 04:32 AM

The first paragraph of Barry Finn's post makes more sense than most of what I read about drugs. At the lowest end of the drugs pyramid, users become sellers to survive. They also are at risk of becoming thieves, violent robbers (if they have the strength), couriers or prostitutes.
The drug laws drive up the price of the product. This is very convenient for the criminal and very hard for the user. It can hardly be stated strongly enough that making the price high does not reduce addiction. It simply protects the profit margins of the drug barons.
In fact, pop star drug addicts are no better or worse than street addicts. They just have enough money to make survival easier. They can afford something, which is too expensive for most people to fund with a normal lifestyle. When we hear calls for retribution against drug using pop stars, we are really just hearing resentment that they do not suffer as much as those at the bottom of the pile.
We can not impose our "moral" values on potential drug takers. This approach has failed for years, just as it has with gambling, prostitution, alcohol, smoking, boxing or just about any other socially undesirable form of behaviour. However, we do have the option of allowing market forces to bring down the prices and devastate the profits of the drug barons. When there is no profit to be made from encouraging drug abuse, who do you think will supply drugs to kids?
It's hardly the pop star's fault that expensive illegal drugs can appear exotic to some people. It was not the pop star who made them expensive.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 06:02 AM

Megan, drug-abusers, their families and friends are victims too. Everyone who is personally touched by drug-misuse, including alcohol et al, is a victim.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: GUEST,Appaloosa Lady
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 06:45 AM

Maybe we have 'educated' our children so far away from the spiritual side of their beings, that they are all lost in a world of confusion, 'celebrities' and 'our chldren' alike. Celebrities, whatever that word means now, and whoever they may be, are also someone's much loved children. Amy Winehouse's Mum said just recently that every time the phone rings, she expects it to be the call, the one telling her that finally her daughter has died. A terrible thing for any mother to live with.

Reading Mary's heartbreaking words above brings it home even more. I so hope that your son is finally able to turn his life around Mary and it's one of the bravest things for any mother to have to do, stand back and let him make those mistakes, whilst being there to catch him, time after time. May you both find peace through all this eventually.

We cannot live our children's lives for them, only be there as best we can to help, guide, and love them, when they need us. But they are ALL living in a world that has seemingly ceased to care. They are stressed from such an early age these days, with tremendous pressure poured down on them, by the Corporate Soul Eaters, who see them as nothing more than banknotes. It is a pressure we never had as young people.

We are, I feel, living through one of the worst World Wars we have ever endured. One that has more casualites that the last two put together, but this time, those casualities are our children. The enemy is coming at them from every single angle, unidentified, hiding behind crooked politicians and pwwerfully controlling corporate industries, de-humanising and de-sensitising their souls. They are helped along immensely by a deeply twisted media, who report only the bad things that happen, and glory in the 'financially over-rich' but 'spiritually destitute' celebrity who staggers towards a death the media so long for them to reach. This will then enable them to sell more papers, get more viewers to their channels etc. They have no concern for the inner turmoil going on inside that fellow human being.

They have no concern to the message they are putting out to young people. That is not on their horizon, they have ceased to care and sold their souls to a bad place.

We need people back again who CARE, but *where* have they gone?

Hey, just look in the mirror....because no-one else is going to turn it all around.

"WE are the ones we have been waiting for" - Mark Thunderwolf


"I'm just a human being trying to make it
in a world that is very rapidly losing its understanding of being human." - John Trudell


And until we change our idea of what the word 'celebrity' actually stands for, things won't improve.


"Our system of "people fame" values self-centeredness and wealth. I want to live in a world where people become famous because of their work for peace and justice and care. I want the famous to be inspiring; their lives an example of what every human being has it in them to do — act from love!" - Dr. Patch Adams

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 07:23 AM

When we hear calls for retribution against drug using pop stars, we are really just hearing resentment

I think there is a lot of truth in that. In my experience the courts, on the whole, deal with celebrities in the same way as they do other individuals, it just seems as if they don't. A lot of non-celebrities lose their jobs through drug misuse, not only because of convictions but also because they lead chaotic lives and it is difficult for them to hold down a job. Celebrities are not only more likely to keep their jobs but to be applauded at the same time.

In the UK some of the measures put in place to help addicts are badly funded and not well thought out. It is difficult enough, in the first place, for addicts to get to the point where they want help. Once they do get to that point there is not then sufficient help - recovery is a long process.

Drug addicts are victims.

Families and loved ones of drug addicts are victims.

Tough love is one of the hardest things in the world.

The government has failed miserably in this area.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 07:32 AM

AL, eanjay - respect. Great sense and sensitivity.
Thanks guys.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 10:48 AM

Not all users and their families are sufferers. Only those who have gone beyond choice and now have no choice but in stead addiction. Those who can and do use other drugs as well as (or if by choice in stead of) alcohol and tobacco but have not become addicted have in fact experienced an additional experience and not been harmed by it.

Well, Backwoodsman, taking you at face value, you are a rarity. An extreme rarity. Was it because of the illegality, and since everyone breaks some laws why did you choose those to obey?   If it was for some other reason, what? It may be relevant to ask your age during the hippy era. Did you know no-one who used drugs, or did you think you observed a sizeable proportion who suffered harm? Oh, and did you never have a cigarette or take alcoholic drink before the legal age?

I got into using alcohol as a matter of social convention, and I still use it. I got into using tobacco likewise and gave up a lot later. I tried some drugs but did not like them. I never tried acid - that scared me. Alcohol is still my drug of choice. I hope I am not addicted!

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Barry Finn
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 01:24 PM

alanabit, you bring up the issue of price & cost.
I haven't a clue as to the costs of drugs now but
In the New England area it costs around $7,000-$10,000 (price as of 1980's) to get one's self into a residential treatment program. This used to be covered by Welfare, now all public assistence funding has disappeared. If a junkie has that kind of money (which celeb's do) then they're not going to spend it on treatment, they'll spend it on drugs. Only when a junkie's at they're worst will they seek/agree to treatment/recovery. As I said above the Methadone programs DO NOT help to cure the problem of addiction, they only help to control the prolem of the addicts behavior. The 1st Methadone clinic in Boston was opened at Whitter St in Boston's South End/Roxbury area in the mid or late 60's I don't believe that there's anyone alive today that was in that program, I knew a good few of them, they were my age & older. Methadone is a cheap way out for society, the junkies can't get high on any other drug because the methadone is so strong it overshadows all other drugs, it also is almost impossible to kick once dependant, it can take over a month, with he help of other drugs it can take longer than half a yr to whine off of it. Other hard drugs take a week or so. It may be possible but I've never know anyone who's succeded in kicking Methadone without becoming addicted to a substiute drug. They pick up their dose early in the morning & then late in the afternoon, they don't need to hussel, work (though many do) or commit crimes to get there money to buy drugs it's free. Drug controled modified behavior.
The residental treatment programs are the closest thing so far that works & not only is the cost to high for most (in the US, is this covered in Canada & the UK under medical coverage?), the waiting lists are usually many months long. Trouble is junkies can't last that long, when there's a break in the clouds & they can finally see there way towards recovery there's a limited window of opportunity for them. If they wait to long their will can't take/make it & they fall back down on their faces. They may never see that break in the clouds again. So drug treatment accessability needs to be made more widely & readily available. You'd think that the government & social programs could see their way to funding this during a war on drugs but there is no war on drugs.
That's the part for recovery, where's the money/funding for prevention/education? In this war on drugs where's the backing for all of this? If just a small bit of what's been poured into the wars in the Middle East was spent here we'd see a much better return for our mis spent-cash. MORE THAN 3,000 AMERICAN LIVES HAVE BEEN LOST TO DRUG ABUSE. MORE THAN WHAT WE'VE LOST IN IRAQ & AFGANISTAN HAS BEEN LOST TO DRUG ABUSE. I'd say I've passed through/by at least 1,000 junkies or more in my life time & I'm saying that most of them are now dead, most of the rest living are in jail, a hospital or are still surviving living as drug users waiting or ready to die, on less than both hands I can count the ones who are drug free (beyound what I call ex's). Not all drug users become addicted. Some stay just far enough away to be on the fringes, some only are recreaction users, some just use as a special treat but those are the odd ones that can keep doing this without eventually falling victim to drug dependancy. I don't address pot smokers & smoking, they're in a class all by themselves. My fathers best friend smoked pot with my father since they were young kids, he died healthy & sound of mind in his 80's probably smoked at the very least a couple times a week, most of the time a lot more than that, I never knew what he did for a living. I've known many who smoke & there's been no ill effects on their health, social or work life, so I leave them to their own. My father knew a lot of old timers like that. My only gripe about pot is that it put's one closer in touch with the underworld of drug life & that can turn into an avenue towards more drug use, I won't say that one leads to the other though.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 01:33 PM

"taking you at face value, you are a rarity. An extreme rarity"

Richard, I don't lie and I don't like the doubt inferred in your comment above.

I was not a rarity amongst my (wide and varied) circle of friends - alcohol and tobacco were acceptable, illegal drugs were not, by any of us. As I said, I was, and still am, capable of individual thought, as were my friends, and we saw no reason to addle our brains with substances which carried a legal risk, when we could do it just as cheaply with alcohol. I was offered the usual weed and pills many, many times, and politely declined on EVERY occasion. I also declined tobacco, apart from one 'go' at a party.

Since you ask, my first alcoholic drink was maybe three months before my 18th birthday, my last one was in December 2005. My first (and last) cigarette was at 21 - whatever those two facts have to do with anything.

If you want any more information about my past life, you'll have to wait until my memoirs are published. They'll make good reading :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 02:12 PM

Well, I am by reason of this being the internet, Backwoodsman, I am bereft of the usual clues about whether someone is lying or not. I am however puzzled by how your direct observation could be so contrary to mine, if they were contemporaneous.

I see from another thread that you are in the borders of Lincolnshire whereas I have always been from near London (apart from 3 years in Australia), although I spent 6 years at university in Nottingham and a bit later 6 months in Chester. I would be commenting on the period from about 1962 to about 1978 - when I turned 30 and so became officially "old and boring". So it looks unikely to have been geography making the difference. I am however talking about a pretty middle-class crowd, but I don't know if you are also talking about such a then crowd.

Pretty well everyone I knew of tried something at least once. Maybe half would have been fairly frequent casual users. Now, I'd say, less than 10% would still be users at all (except of alcohol) and not one that I ever knew before they were an addict went onto become an addict.

One of my late wife's friends was an addict from before I knew her. Larry the Loon and Mad Mick were addicts from before I knew them and still were when they dropped out of my ken.

With respect to the period after I became old and boring, I have one relative who was a pretty heavy and eclectic user (as was his girlfriend) - but now they are boring middle class parents. I knew one folk musician who was a heavy and eclectic user from before I knew him - but dropped teh lot including his 9% cider when he became a father. I know one rock musician who still puts stuff up his nose in bursts every few months - but he did that from before I knew him.

I know several pretty dependent drinkers.

That is not consistent with the picture painted on this thread of cannabis being the no1 entry route to hard drug addiction.

Subject: RE: BS: Role Model Drug users
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 03:44 PM

Obviously, I mixed with a better class of person. :-) :-)

In the 60's, my teenage years, illicit drugs were virtually unknown in the small market town I grew up in. the only times I was offered drugs were in nearby large towns and cities. Until I started work as a Youth-Worker in 1983, I'd never met anyone who was addicted to anything other than cigarettes and alcohol. My introduction to substance misuse (alcohol and tobacco excepted) was amongst the 14-21 year-olds I was meeting through the job, and busting my balls to keep them on the right track. Several died in their teens or early twenties of heroin O/Ds, one drove a stolen car into the Trent and drowned after using illegal substances, a few went to young offenders' institutions as a result of crimes committed in order to feed their addictions. My son has been a heroin addict for ten years, although he's been clean for the past three or four.

Regarding the entry route, the only people I hear speaking in praise of cannabis are the 'tired, sad old hippie, The 60's Were Fab' brigade. Every young person addicted to 'hard' drugs that I've ever met (and that's quite a number) told me they'd started on pot because they were told it was 'safe', and wished they'd never got involved with it. That's evidence enough for me. Out of the mouths of horses and babes.....

My final contribution to this thread, I've never used illegal drugs in my life, yet for 25 years my life has been dominated by drugs and addiction. I'm sick to fuckin' death of hearing about drugs and druggies, and I'm sick to fuckin' death of pot-smoking idiots who deny what's right in front of them.

Backwoodsman has left the building.