Views in Verse - on addressing priorities
A 2013 report by the Australian Drug & Research Center has again highlighted the growing shift into all areas of society of casual drug use; or as the media likes to call them 'recreational drugs', both very forgiving terms I suggest.
But to downplay this problem is like comparing a breaking wave with a coming tsunami given the information now publicly available beyond this source on the subject. The United Nations in 2012 nominated Australia as the greatest users of recreational drugs in the world!
I have personally seen the sad effects of this in recent years as I have observed several friends become demonized and a few destroyed by these drugs (eg: ecstasy/cocaine). Whilst I still see a few stumbling along in the class often referred to as 'functioning addicts'. This obtuse category suggesting that they are somehow under control on a daily basis. Surely 'dysfunctional' would better apply.
I have also seen and many times discussed with my now grown sons the extent of casual drug use both in a social sense and secondarily in relation to work-life. Their perspectives in particular made me much more aware of how much the real situation has changed in Sydney in the past decade.
Casual drug use has now permeated all areas of society and is freely available on demand. A new equally warm term of 'designer drugs' has been applied to perhaps the most dangerous grouping of all. The Tsunami is just beyond view.
Much of this knowledge has made me acutely aware that this is not only a social crisis. That indeed many casual weekend users may in fact not be fully functional in the workplace until perhaps Wednesday in any given working week. The ramifications of this for workplace productivity (Australia's most challenging frontier) are thereby profound!
The Australian Drug Foundation purports alcohol use to be 85% of the problem and in its many programs is claiming huge success in changing user patterns according to their 2013 online annual report. My view here is that they are not recognizing a far greater problem building in the background with the more refined and dangerous drugs of choice. Treating serious drug use as an 20/80 item cannot be tolerated from an organisation charged with addressing such matters.
Notwithstanding my greatest fear here is that if we continue to downplay the severity of the situation, much as we did with alcohol for so long, in 'softly softly' ways as suggested above, then the consequences may be dire. I say this as reaching out to hardened users of social drugs will in most cases be - 'too late'. The time to create greater awareness and action plans is now. Either that or we will be seen to be 'fostering' an acceptance of this destructive culture and the resulting adoption into mainstream as 'normal'.
We in Australia must first publicly recognize the severity of the problem. The media has a key role to play here. Perhaps the media only find it about as palatable to discuss as they have the subject of mental health in the past. Sydney Uni Paper - http://bit.ly/1a1XMmx
Subjugation
Draw me in
familiar sin
Take me to the gate
Fold me in hungering
My ways
my days my fate
Don't look down
Or move about
The purchase is so thin
Our time is lent
My lot's near spent
To the edge
I go again
Send me down now
Laughing loud
My pain, my truth
My glee
Ready to go
The clouds are low
My weight
is strangely free
The steps are there
Advice... 'take care'
Ignore another warning
The fog is thick
I go to it
Leave me now
...I'm falling
Learn from me
Transcend me
My story's there to tell
But ...let me be
to find the key
to end
this journey well
Forwarded from my I-pad Grahame J Flynn
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