Another reader comments:
I don't think kids put that much thought into it. It's not like they just read Neitzche and realize that life and the world is without meaning or purpose, so where can I buy some heroin? And even if it was the case that SCV teens and young adults lead despairing lives, what's the solution? Midnight basketball like Clinton proposed? More after school programs?
We live in a city that focuses a lot of resources on its youth. We have school districts who have tried everything from strict anti-drug enforcement policies to volunteer drug testing. And yet the deaths continue.
Teens do stupid things because, well, they're teens. They have adult bodies and, with few exceptions, immature minds. Usually they can recover and learn from mistakes they make.
That is unless one of their mistakes is trying heroin.
Then the odds are stacked against them in ways sober people can't really comprehend.
-----------------
Another young person dies of heroin, ctd
So a lot more coverage on drug deaths but nobody seems to have any answers, or even how to frame the question. Cary Quashen seems to advocate rehab without end (his business) but it seems that every drug death contains a rehab or two in the narrative. Commenters on the web coverage seem to think that if we were all just "aware" that would have some kind of salutary effect.
I look at my own personal experience. When I had my first hernia operation I was given some Vicodin which I took for two days. The first day I slept so no problem, but the second day the Vicodin made me feel "strange" because I couldn't focus; not even to watch television, so the third day I switched to Tylenol. When I had my SECOND hernia operation I just asked for prescription Tylenol; nothing more. Therefore, I have less than ZERO desire to ingest opiates because I did not like the feeling.
I still think that a profile is emerging where these kids lead despairing lives where they really see no future, and that is what is driving the drug use, not the fact that we do not have enough "awareness" or there is not enough enforcement.
I don't think kids put that much thought into it. It's not like they just read Neitzche and realize that life and the world is without meaning or purpose, so where can I buy some heroin? And even if it was the case that SCV teens and young adults lead despairing lives, what's the solution? Midnight basketball like Clinton proposed? More after school programs?
We live in a city that focuses a lot of resources on its youth. We have school districts who have tried everything from strict anti-drug enforcement policies to volunteer drug testing. And yet the deaths continue.
Teens do stupid things because, well, they're teens. They have adult bodies and, with few exceptions, immature minds. Usually they can recover and learn from mistakes they make.
That is unless one of their mistakes is trying heroin.
Then the odds are stacked against them in ways sober people can't really comprehend.
-----------------