My boyfriend totally seen two walmart employees snort cocaine off their hands in the kids aisle yesterday. I don't know why he didn't go to managemant and say something... but when I heard I was flabbergasted. What is the world coming to?
I caught someone doing this at my old job in the men's bathroom. They thought they were being totally sly about the situation as they stepped out of the stall, still sniffing. I sang like a canary. No shame to my game. The human resource manager was very slick about the capture. "Surprise urinalysis for the following people...."
A few weeks ago i was on a train coming home from the city (around midnight) and there was about five people snortng coke (they had girly magazines and i was like, umm there men and its midnight ,why). They folded the front cover and used it to snort off. I said nothing, i new where they were going though.
Wow, I don't think I've seen people doing anything in public like that, but don't worry about where the world's coming to. It's always been like this. I had a friend who knew someone who went to a meeting once for top officials for Disney, and they broke out the coke and sniffed it right off the meeting table. Don't worry, as long as there's a drug to get high off of, stupid people will flock to it.
Those folks aren't exactly MENSA material. Also, I doubt they care much about anyone beyond their current line of sight. Hell, they don't even have much respect for themselves!
On an even sadder and more sceevie note... In Puerto Rico, only the sale of drugs is treated as a crime. Use of said drugs is not. It is not rare at all to see junkies (the drug of choice in PR is heroine) wandering in their stupified, drug induced, zombie states. It grosses me out to no end.
I don't think it should, I mean, it's their body and if they're not harming anyone why treat them as criminals? That's just wasted taxes. They should be able to fine them in order for the users to cough up who sold them the drugs, and be offered help to overcome addiction.* *: Not a junkie.
That seems a little lofty. Heroin is one of the most addictive substances on the planet, and it only takes a few grams to get you hooked. It annoys me when people look down on drug addicts like they're scum. It could happen to you. One moment of weakness and bam, society will shun you forever... Edit: I agree with Ac...gla...pot... the person above. Addicts are just victims. You don't arrest shopkeepers for being robbed...
worldwizard: Your boyfriend's story sounds a bit odd. Doesn't WalMart have surveillance cameras, like most large stores? And wouldn't most people snort coke in the toilet or at the very least in an employee lounge?
I dont really care much (for or againt) junkies. But i do hate getting pestered 5 times a day while i catch a train into town. I once got spat on by a junkie becase i wouldnt give her $5. After that day i do dislike drug addicts more, but thats my experience which got screwed over, i wont forget that. I do hate pushers selling drugs though, thats something else!
Junkies are just victims? Really? Did I actually just read that? That's about the most unaccountable opinion I think I have ever read. "It's not my fault I stuck the needle in my arm after having seen Trainspotting a dozen times. I'm just the victim here."
Well, I'd agree, provisionally. Many people choose to be victims. By surrendering to something beyond their control, they can abdicate any resposibility for their actions, and can get people to pity them and take care of them. There are real victims. The bystander struck by a stray bullet in a shootout between rival gangs is a victim. So are the mother and daughter killed in a car crash with a drunk driver. Likewise the person who contracts leukemia. But the guy who sticks a needle in his butt, or snorts up a line of powder, and gets hooked? No. This is the guy who portrays a victim, and creates real victims around him. And yet I doagree with a previous point. They don't all need to be treated as criminals, not for the drug use alone. They should be prosecuted for harm they do to others while under the influence. But they should be offered medical and psychological assistance to rid themseleves of the addiction. That is, when and if they decide not to be victims.
And I thought I would be sent to juvenile jail for sneaking of a sip each of all the drinks in my aunts drink cabinet.* Thank God in this part of the world people don't snort drugs like that.....they snort it inside gutters. All in all, man will finish himself long before his needs finish humanity. (*I liked white wine, rumand champagne best. lol) Jokes aside, it's all patheticand the worst part...these people aren't satisfied to leave it that way...nope...they have to turn others towards the devil too.
The unfortunate reality is we're surrounded by the victims of addiction, whether they be those who are robbed to facilitate junkies' desires; the families of addicts, who bare the brunt of having to deal with parasitical loved ones, or the addicts themselves, who, like all addicts, took the initial decision to sample their drug of choice, thinking they'd never succumb to it's nebulous powers. I'm no fan of the hoards of addicts roaming the streets and parks of my home city, stalking the public like hyenas after prey on the Serengeti, but I still see them as ultimate victims of themselves and Society's failure to deal with today's many ills. From my experience dealing with addicts, on a community basis, I know how easy it is to be judgemental without knowing how addiction develops. Initial users use because it feels damn good, whether it's coke or heroin. The first few times are a joy, from all accounts. It only becomes a problem when a 'need' develops and the user feels uneasy and incomplete until they acquire their next hit. That's when the sickness comes into it. They'll do anything to feed the demon. I've had the unenviable task of pulling a seventeen year old girl out of a stream, dead from a heroin overdose. A year before, she was the pride of her family, with great intentions of being the first to attend university. What happened? What usually happens; she used, thinking she'd be well able to control it, not knowing she'd end up being found by kids, dead in the water, her life and family destroyed by an evil that surrounds us all. It's easy to be judgemental, and I do understand where people are coming from in such instances, but it will aways be a problem once we refuse to tackle it in a constructive way.
Cog, I guess my issue with the use of the term victim when dealing with these kinds of choices is that there is a very real power to be had in the role of victim. When the person is a true victim if things outside their control, then this power is deserved and necessary in order to recoup at least some of what has been lost in the act of victimization, but as you have pointed out, the use and or abuse of drugs is a choice. I know it for a fact. I threw away two years of my life as a 24/7, wake & bake pot head. I had every reason and excuse for my addiction carefully written and orchestrated and rehearsed, and my delivery of these excuses was worthy of any stage award one would care to offer. I was a walking Liftetime Channel movie of the week character. I only managed to get out from under my self created situation when I accepted that I was, in fact, not a victim, but a willing and cognizant creator of my situation. I had, in a most insulting manner, taken on the trappings of the victim in order to protect myself from the judgment of others for the choices I had made and continued to make. I realize I am probably just spiting semantic hairs here as to the meaning of the word victim, but as you have eloquently pointed out, there are real victims in the world who had no hand in what occurred to them. I feel like using the word victim to refer to the choices that junkies make is a bit of an insult to those who have truly been dealt a bad hand by fate.
wordwizard, I find that story disgusting and purely disrespectful. I can't believe how little people think of others these days... "Hi! My name is Bob. I use heroin and beat my wife and children, spend all our money on heroin and my family never eats. We are about to be kicked out of our home because of my drug abuse. Pity me, because I am a victim. Not my family, just me!" Yup! Drugs users sure are victims!
Ok, heres a question, what about if a kid, say aged 7-14ish starts pushing pills, shooting up. And if they do because they see their parents do it, live the lifestlye of the above.. do we call them a victim... is there a line that there really is a victim behaviour. I just watched something last night (doco about Aboriginal kids in urban sydney) whom i had once worked with. They had "drug-related behaviour), but Being Aboriginals living in Urban sydney they had pretty much all been brought up in poverty, neglect, racism, violence (community/family), and deadbeat parents (there parents being the way they are becuase of their parents, repeat over an over). Are thery victims, or should they know better (most these people cant afford tvs or phone lines so there only communication is the society they live in). Just my five cents. i I do agree with this, and know what yout saying. I just wanted to put another side of drug-users lifes out there. One thats more apparent to me (wrking with them for such a prolonged time).
What annoys me is there are thousands of families out there that are living in poverty and can barely make ends meet and they can somehow still afford to use drugs. You can't say that isn't so, because I know for a fact that it happens all the time. I've seen it first hand!!!
The way I see it, there's no real hierarchy of victimhood when the true meaning of 'victim' is relative to the individual's definition. I have found that without true compassion, the weakest will never find the strength necessary to discover sufficient hope to at least lift themselves high enough to see the light of salvation. Like I said before, irrispective of experience, leaving addicts to their own devices simply prolongs the torture, for everyone.
Yeah, with my example before, they alays get welfare though government assistance (Cause their Aborigiinal), and when i lived in the city Thursday night was drink night (pay day). Stuck in the system i guess.
Wreybies, heroin is a whole other ball-park to pot. If you understood anything about it you'd know that. Cannabis can be habit-forming, sure, but heroin is fifty times harder to kick. I can't believe any of you could condemn someone for one moment of weakness, or curiosity. Furthermore, I can't believe you'd be callous enough to have a hierarchical system for the degree of sympathy certain victims deserve over others... Nobody wants to be a pathetic, homeless drug addict whose quality of life is worse than the poorest of third world countries. How they end up like that seems irrelevant. And you act like it's their choice to keep taking drugs. They don't have the kind of resources you imagine they do. Just last week a major drug addiction centre was closed down in Dublin because our economy is failing. And who are the first to suffer? The drug addicts; scum of society who deserve no better. Not like they have any way to defend themselves. It makes me sick...
No. I'm quite well aware of the difference between the physical adiction of heroin and other opiate drugs and the merely psychological adiction of weed. And still, no. You can call me callous if you like, and perhaps you are right. Perhaps you are. But since there are no bill-boards or posters or advertisements on the tele extolling the wonders of heroine use, and as there are endless examples of individuals coming from the very worst of beginnings and achieving greatness, then, no, I do not accept these excuses. They lie on the other side of a line. (Double entendre intended.) And maybe that does make me cold, heartless, and perhaps I will answer for that on Judgment Day. My take on the subject remains as solid as stone.
