Doing Drugs

As a child of the 70's I knew all about the illegal drug offerings that were abundant then. I heard about the "Trips" and overall euphoria that dabbling in these could offer. I knew respectable people who were arrested for growing marijuana and watched as rock star after rock star plus some acquaintances die of massive overdoses. I heard of heroin addicts who would steal and perhaps kill for that next fix. I had heard of the drug rings and the violence as a result of them. Heck, even Betty Ford stated a REHAB center as a result of her fight with the "legal" ones. Naively, I thought this was all over in the early '80s when I became a wife and mother. Plus, Nancy Reagan told everyone to "Just Say No" to drugs.

In the 90's when I stepped down off the "Perfect Planet" for a minute I realized that illegal drugs had never come close to going away. The addicts were all still there ruining their lives and those around them. The new drugs had names like Crack, Free Basing and people were still doing the ones that had been around for years.

Good news for the junkies.....drugs are not illegal anymore. You can go to the doctor, complain about anything from being depressed, to being fat, or just not feeling good in general and you will get a pill. You can get a really good high from the medications prescribed for just getting a tooth pulled. If your children are rowdy you can get a pill to fix that too for you as well as them. Wonder how horrible it was fifty years ago, when you just said "children will be children".

Today as I leaf through a magazine or watch a TV commercials I see ad after ad about this drug or the other that will cure all that ails all followed by the warnings and side effects you could have by taking said drug. Made me think.....if you are depressed, have chronic pain, make too many trips to the bathroom or experiencing bone loss and take a pill for each problem, what if you experienced all the side effects? Not a pretty picture.

If one drug is legal, it is only fair to legalize the rest.