COMMENT, Sydney – I was staying in the Crowne Plaza Parramatta again last night.
In the next room, someone was smoking drugs.
The familiar smell wafted through the vents.
Familiar? It’s not the first time I have been in a hotel or units, to see drug use.
This time USD$180 per night per room in the suburbs. A 4.5 star hotel. Best in the area.
The difference is once their would have been shame. Now it’s open. And across all levels of society. Most likely these were corporate guests.
They also re-arranged furniture at odd intervals. Heavy drug users seem to be relatively crazy as I have noticed furniture rearranging and banging into walls seem to go with the territory.
This all started at 11.15pm and I was woke at 5.00 am again. Not much sleep again.
For those who think traveling for work is glamorous, it can get real old fast.
How did we get here?
I’m tired of listening to people talk about how television shows like Big Brother don’t contribute to this.
Better to ask what positive changes in society does a show about groping sex, nudity, dumb people, drunken games, a spa and a pack of morons who are cheaper by the dozen contribute in its 7th season.
I am not a prude, nor an overt social conservative. I believe in sexual expression in society. I like a drink. I am normal.
But if you accept everything you will allow anything.
There is even talk of a covert online movement in our society to even desensitize us to pedophilia.
More than a few prominent politicians and judges have been accused prominently of pedophilia.
What’s next? What’s the new low-point in culture?
I am tired of hearing that violence on TV does not desensitize us.
I am sick of hearing that all drug users are victims needing care. Children may have culpable parents, but adults make the dumb choice.
Are you also sick of seeing football stars take drugs and say it doesn’t matter?
And the comparison between alcohol (which can be moderated) and drug use, which is anything but moderate.
It seems we have no standards any longer.
It is time we stopped talking about drug use as a valid choice. It is not.
Drug use is endemic and prevents a positive society
Drug use sweeps all of society. It seems to be perceived by some in Australia as being a wowser to criticise it.
TV Channel 7 unearths drug use by football players, and Channel 7 is attacked, not the drug users.
I know several drug-using lawyers and one cocaine-sniffing accountant. All of their professional performance suffers.
How can you make good decisions under drugs?
Every drug user I have seen has ended up destroying their lives or damaging the lives of those around them. Drug use does not end well.
This is an endemic problem. It has worsened in the last 2 years.
The problem seems to be that the leadership generation at current in Australia that accept drug use and don’t try to create a better society. The USA is in a similar predicament. The UK is so far gone that they will need a radical overhaul to pull it back.
This is the root cause, in my opinion. Less and less of us care about the better society.
And further, that many people tacitly accept drug use as ‘normal’.
Many other citizens think you can just build a bigger fence, but in reality it’s building a fence after the drug use is already on the inside and rampant.
The real problem for your family
It’s hard to live in isolation from the society. As a business traveller staying in arguably the best hotel in a suburb that has at least 9 hotels, I should be able to avoid drug use.
I was on the executive floor, yet.
In Australia and UK many of us have given up even discussing what a better society is.
Oh well, I guess we can all read the Daily Telegraph or other tabloid.
Take care
Christopher
“Every drug user I have seen has ended up destroying their lives or damaging the lives of those around them. Drug use does not end well.”
If that sums the evidence for your claim that drug use “does not end well,” then I, and the other 94,000,000 citizens of the USA who have tried pot at least once may counter that, in many cases, it does.
Convince someone outside the “choir,” someone who sits on the fence about this issue by coming up with something better.
As it stands, I’m “tired” of spurious accusations made against people who use, or abuse, drugs based on anecdotal evidence.
I don’t agree with drug use. that’s my opinion. I have no problem with tobacco or alcohol when not abused.
Personally, I have had a few friends / co-workers destroy their lives and their families through drug use.
Even more so than the USA, drug use in Australia is across all levels of society.
Some people can smoke pot and be fine. I have met people who are perfectly normal people.
The smell I was alluding too however was a more serious drug.
ICE or something similar.
The long term effects from a govt website on the topic are:
“Long-term effects
Long-term use of ice can result in a number of health issues, including:
*
high blood pressure and increased risk of heart-related complications such as heart attack and heart failure
*
malnutrition and rapid weight loss due to reduced appetite
*
chronic sleeping problems
*
reduced immunity and increased susceptibility to infections due to the person not sleeping or eating properly
*
depression, anxiety, tension and paranoia
*
brain damage (there is some evidence that amphetamines may damage brain cells resulting in reduced memory function and other impairments in thinking)
*
dental problems (from grinding teeth)”
Why would you do that? but that is what my next door neighbours were likely doing.
I don’t like Pot. But adults can make informed choices.
Not all teenagers can and there is reasonable medical evidence to show pot exacerbates depression and bi-polar disorders, and leads to harder drugs,
Under-age drinking also causes social problems.
You make your choices. We all do.
now pass me my GlenLivet whiskey.
Christopher
Our neighbor next door smokes dope. It is his problem not my problem of course. But I do care when that toxic smell, comes through to our place and makes us sick. This effects my family too, so it becomes our problem.
Using drugs does not solve any problem in life. On the contrary makes life difficult, not only for the person who uses it, but for the others around him too.
In my opinion, drug users are selfish. All they care is themselves.
Drug users can do as they please, but they should perhaps be more considerate of others instead of closing the curtains and wasting their lives on drugs, get out there and do something useful instead!!!
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