|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Just Say Know | |||||
|
|
Every year the drug scene changes a lot. And every year, a lot doesn’t change at all. Straight goods by Dave Jacox The names of several new drugs appear annually to show how inventive the sellers who value a fast buck over human life really are. Every previously unheard-of addition to the "user’s" shopping list receives a major advertising campaign thanks to a media which is very aware that bad news is hot news. Anyway, the impression you get is that every kid in class, with the single exception of yourself, is high on some sinister product of modern science. Which just isn’t true. For the great majority of people, and certainly for most teens, the names on the list are nothing more than names on a list. What you see is not likely to be what you get. Or use.
But these are the nineties. Anyone eager to trash reality has so many exciting new routes to go. There’s coke and crack and ice and meth … it’s all so confusing. So what are the Drugs-of-the-Day? In the face of the largest inventory of mind and mood-altering substances ever offered … a lot of them perfectly legal … what is actually finding its way into the lockers and lives of Alberta teenagers? Are you ready? We’re about to reveal the most popular drugs in use today in your neighborhood. They are:
Hey, where’s the ice? It’s not just that these are the most common cop-outs for those who can’t handle reality or exercise a little self-restraint. They are light-years ahead of anything else on the top ten list.
Which creates a problems, because, teenagers are curious. They operate very differently from younger brothers and sisters who are generally happy to simply hear what mom and dad have to say, and obey. It’s not that teens want to disobey just for the sake of it. It’s just that they want to know why they’re being told to do or not do a particular thing. Most people who get this magazine mailed to their homes are capable of making really good
decisions, if they’re given good information to work with. Unfortunately, where drugs are concerned, that’s
not always the case. Parents and other older people who are afraid of their kids falling into the traps set
by money-mongering merchants of meth and other potentially destructive substances want "just say no" to
be enough. And it isn’t. Young people consider understanding to be an important part of knowing. "Don’t just tell me not to do drugs. Help me understand why anyone would want to do drugs." Despite all the news you hear about drugs, it’s actually getting harder to have an intelligent discussion about the things people take and the reasons they take them to change their perception of things. There’s no shortage at all of people who are prepared to bore you to death with stories of why they won’t eat meat or will spend two hours a day on the stair machine … but turn the conversation to drugs and you’d better be prepared for a strong silence. Which doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take the lead and try to get people talking. Not just about the factual blacks and whites of the issue … but about the emotional "greys", where the real dangers exist. There’s also a lot of information you can access easily, including our chart. As well as many dead examples of where making the wrong decisions relative to substance use can lead. At ZOOT, we think drugs are bad news. Our opinion is based on letters we get and people we’ve known who’ve been hurt in any number of ways as a result of substance abuse. The only thing that we feel is worse news is being unaware of what’s happening around you, and why. If you don’t have an understanding of the issue, you can be taken in by it in a way you never expected. If you’re clueless, you’re also helpless when it comes to helping a friend or relative who gets into trouble with drugs or alcohol. You don’t have to be a user in order to gain an insight into the problem, though. You’ll find that an open bottle. And now, that chart we promised! |
|||||
 |
 |
Every now and then, we sit down to compile an
up-to-date ZOOT list of the things people are putting into their bodies and minds in order to make the world go
away, or at least temporarily take on a more attractive appearance.
Your parents …
sorry, not your parents of course, but someone else’s probably experimented with alcohol while they were in
their teens. They may have smoked tobacco, as crazy as that seems to most of us these days. And speaking of
smoking, there’s a better than average change that they had some exposure (perhaps hearing about it from a
friend, ‘cause they’d never touch the stuff themselves) to the demon Marijuana.
