Some months ago as I ate at a roadside cafe in Frankfurt, two young men came and sat at the next table. They were probably British, tall and strong and fit. They wore stylish black T shirts and high quality jeans. Their cheerful demeanor contrasted with the dark messages on their T shirts - pictures of skeletons and words of death and despair.
Across the road, I saw a young blond girl - looking like Steffi Graf in her prime - come and sit down on the pavement with her back against a wall. She was dressed in sky blue denim and the evening sun lit her with a nice light. She brought out a brown paper bag and I could vaguely make out that she was doing something with her arm. When I looked a few minutes later, her body had slumped forward. Soon she was flat on the dirty pavement.
I could not help but note the irony - while some of us play at being "grown up" with dark images and dark words and dark music, others who are innocent and young lose the bright spark of their youth to the darkness of drugs. There was no great insight here - just oodles of irony.
Frankfurt has its dark side. There are a few streets where the pavement is littered with used needles and addicts walk around aimlessly. The whole place stinks of urine. Some of the drug users are still young and relatively healthy. Others are older, their eyes sunken and their skin blotchy.
Sometimes there are groups of addicts who are quite aggressive in asking for money. Walking past them is for me one of the scariest things in the world, because you can see in their empty eyes that they could stab you with a knife or a needle and not even realize what they had done. I don't think I have felt fear like that in any other situation.
I normally prefer that individual freedoms are not circumscribed by government regulations and I usually believe in giving the individual the right to experiment, but with drugs the answer is not that obvious. Many drugs are too highly addictive to expect a human being to be able to try them and yet resist them.
From the relaxed regulations of the Netherlands which focus on treating the individual, to the harsh, death penalty approach of countries like Indonesia and Singapore (which runs the risk of executing unwitting carriers of drugs), this is one battle waged across the world without any clear formula of success.
5 comments:
Respected Sir,
The blog reflects the dark part of the west, though this is not the problem of a single nation but the whole world.
Drug addiction is the most worst and harmful thing which can be faced by any nation.
As we know the major drug addicted person are young population of a country, this is the main problem which changes the whole picture.
The main reason is environment and friends upto some extent, though it may not be a valid reason if person is self controlled.
Yes, sir everyone is free for doing experiments in his/her freedom but not with life.
If we talk about regulations in our country than we are no where, for looking seriously in this matter.
Thank You,
Proton Chetan Choparia
Fall 09
Indore Campus
Good morning sir,
I am first time able to leave comment. I tried to leave comment many time but the habit of procrastination stopped me to be a part of your blog, but today i defeated the habit and i promise to leave comment. sir what you have told in this blog, this is the reality of developed nations. A country where people are able to have what they desire, they don't have scarcity in there life. so there young generation are living aim less life. they have everything what they desire for. In India young people have to struggle a lot in there life. they want to have everything what they desire for themselves. but now a days cities like Mumbai, Delhi some young people are becoming like other developed nation. they are having addiction of drugs. I had seen 2-3 young boys at church gate station who were injecting dugs through needles, so we are becoming developed and forgetting our culture. This is the matter of ignorance. so being a young person i criticize it badly.
Respected Sir,
This eye opening blog of yours has brought me into a situation so as to say nothing but to find myself in a miserable situation because knowing the matter of fact that today each and every nation has this problem.Testing of drugs,experiments is one thing which if used for a better cause can create wonders but public finding it as a solution of every problem is what i can't understand why so?
The only thing i would like to suggest is if these addictions being converted into useful experiments by those who are addicted can find a better solutions for problems as they are practically attached to it!
Scientists need to make those people realize the difference!!Efforts make a problem solved.
Thank You Sir!
Lovish Dua.
Thanks for the comments, Chetan and Anshuman. Interesting idea, Lovish :-)
Respected Sir,
This was a great sharing and a great lesson as well.
This post is different from the post showing glitz of foreign countries.The darker side is also there.But it is there in our country also.Few days back I came across a news on Aaj tak which gave the same message that where the youth is heading with drug addiction.The news was of Banglore.
I was wondering that on one side we are developing to capture the world and on other hand we are ruinig our lives with such addictions.
I think government should conduct some motivational events to make people aware of such catastropic elements.
Thanks Sir
Regards
Proton Shraddha
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