My heart hurts today. A friends young daughter passed away yesterday of a drug overdose. The pain she is dealing with right now must be unbearable. I cannot even imagine if one of my children left this earth before me, honestly this is one of my greatest fears.
I have been around drug abuse most of my life and have seen the devastation it causes to the person using and the family and friends around them who love and care about them.
The question I have to ask is when and how do we stop this train wreck?
- The pharmaceutic companies must have some consequence for creating highly addictive substances that have 8 million people in the United States hooked.
- How do citizens fight this multi-billion dollar industry?
- What about the doctors who prescribe these like candy, what’s their penance?
- Certainly there are tracking mechanisms in place to catch doctors over prescribing
- How about the dealers with no conscience who sell anything and everything for a quick buck?
- Used to be a lot more difficult than it is today to get illegal drugs, every corner
- How about the coaches who want athletes on the field at any cost?
- Oh I know this begins in high school as I have seen it firsthand, college, NFL, your knee hurts here is a pain med.
I don’t pretend to have the answer but certainly as a society we at some point have to recognize that something has to give. Maybe instead of building new prisons maybe we should put our funding into treatment facilities. Yes the argument I am certain will be made that each person has a choice, but do they really once they are hooked. The mind and body aren’t fully developed until almost 30 and are now altered, how do you go back? I found some research from Daniel Amen which I found very interesting, if you have time take a look.
SsGreenBean 