Goal for New Year: Target Illegal Drugs

Too many Cape May County young people died drug-related deaths in 2011. How many? I don’t know. Statistics must be out there, cloaked in mystery in some file drawer. All I know is there were reportedly five in early February, and no one said “Boo Hoo” about their loss. It was as if they had never lived, or were deemed unwashed and unworthy of sharing the air we breathe or water we drink.
They were we, and they are gone. With them a wee bit us went to the grave.
We are in serious danger of losing a generation. Like a war torn society, in the future, someone may look back and wonder, “Where is the missing generation?” Sadder still are the children of drug-addicted parents whose minds will suffer from drugs their mother took as they were still in the womb. They will forever pay a debt they never incurred, and we, who pay for social services provided to them, will bear the burden of someone else’s drug use.
It is time for us to determine to alter those chilling statistics. If, by Dec. 31, 2012 we look back and have saved just one young person, the work will have been well worth the effort.
One death is too many, especially if it was a loved one or friend. How about finding the real number? There’s a really tough nut to crack. Some that were drug-related might be officially listed as another cause of death.
Such a morbid topic to begin a new year, but the drug problem, and deaths that ensue here in Cape May County are not new to law enforcement.
Regardless of the public’s money spent to prevent and thwart drug use here, the problem is worse than ever. Some say the only way to stop it is, in effect, to legalize drug use. That way, like prostitution in Nevada, once governed, the thought is that illegal drug sales, and bad drugs, will disappear from our street corners and motel rooms. Somehow, I don’t believe that theory.
Seems there is another theory that goes, “If we didn’t have high unemployment, we wouldn’t have so much drug use.” My question to that tack, if users are unemployed (translated: no money) where are they finding the loot to buy the trash that they inject, snort or ingest? Maybe it’s from rent money or the kids’ lunch money or from mom’s or grandmother’s pocketbook.
According to one man, about whose son’s death I wrote a story, society itself is producing young drug addicts. Drug producers make legal drugs that are like hooks for the unwary. Before it can be realized, those drug users easily slide from legal to illegal drugs. A pain-killing drug, on the street for $50 from an illicit peddler, seems to offer ease from pain, albeit short-lived.
At that point, economics kick in. Heroin is cheaper say at $10 a fix. Do the math. It’s cheap and dirty, and to a body craving the chemical, anything will work. So it’s a done deal, and a young bloodstream is infected. Perhaps a young adult goes into cardiac arrest, in a car or a bedroom. Life slows and, then stops. Without anyone around to revive the user, death wins again. A family goes into mourning and shock. Parents and grandparents are stunned in disbelief. Spouses are left to cope with unanswered questions. Children cry for their mom or dad. Siblings weep over the bitter loss.
How can it be honestly stated drug use hurts no one but the user?
The answer, too obvious to overlook, is to diminish desire for those killer opiates. That goes deeper than a job, it goes to the very core of one’s being. They must believe in their own self worth, that they are not merely a number that gives some social worker a job from nine to five, off on weekends. They must believe there is more to life than what they see in their present state.
Every religion teaches such core values. It is vital that those from every faith community reach to embrace their brothers and sisters in their time of need. We need each other more than we know.
There are support groups to help those who seek it, but the answer cannot be preached, it must come from within the person. They must see their value, believe in themselves and have a yearning to surmount their present condition.
No one said shaking drugs would be easy, it is not. Wake up, Cape May County, without a change in course, we will continue to bow our heads in shame at the realization another young life has been lost to illegal drugs. We will see the quality of life here be degraded. Streets will be run by drug pushers. Guns will become the law of the land.
This is not a crying shame it’s criminal, and it’s a fact of life. But it can change.
Will this be the year a mass of justifiably angry county residents rise up against drug use, users and peddlers? Will this be the year we scream to our leaders, “Enough?”
Only through the concerted will of the people can this lethal problem be addressed. Many positive things have started here in Cape May County. We could be the place known as the starting site in America that made up its collective mind to get rid of illegal drugs once and for all.
Start with the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) courses in school. Follow up in those awful, pressure-filled formative years in middle and high school.
Encourage parents to set positive role models for their children. Urge parents to instill in their offspring that illegal drugs kill, yes, even young people like teens and twenty-somethings.
Let’s have testimonies from teens and young adults who were addicts who “went clean.” Let them tell their stories how they rid themselves of the urge for illicit drugs.
I’d love to hear other ideas on how to clear this scourge from our county, first, then state, then beyond those borders.
It’s either that or bid adieu to our young people, the next generation, our hope and future. Who is willing to do that?