Drugs

Drugs are there because our societies give them room to be. Talking drugs by itself isn't much of a subject. My interest in drugs, which by the way I never took, lies in the fact that they help us see what is wrong in the way we live and raise our children. Talking drugs is talking ourselves, even if we do not take them and nobody we know takes them.

For the drug traffic, Portugal is one of the preferred gateways into Europe. It comes by boat, some of it from North Africa, some from farther away. The Coast Guard feels impotent to stop the traffic, in part because they do not have the means to do it. On its passage through, some of the drug rubs off and the fact is that many families in our country have youngsters addicted on drugs, and that several almost forbidden neighbourhoods in Lisbon are actual huge drug supermarkets.

Talking drugs used to be fashionable in the mid-sixties pop songs, especially because it was a way of being irreverent. Nowadays it is a more serious matter because it is very large-scale business and takes toll from inumerous rich kids. But it remains a sort of taboo. People can see movies (namely «Trainspotting») that more or less honestly display the hell in which the consumers live, and still go home and fancy that it has nothing to do with them. It does, it does...
 
 
 

 Outlook

Recovering from Addiction

  • Secret Surrealist Society Chris Keeley's Home Page & links
  • Narcotics Anonymous, text for downloading (344 KB ZIP)
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    Texts

  • Living and working without drugs Excerpts from a text sponsored by Lisbon's Mayor (translated from the Portuguese)
  • Quality control over Ecstasy and much more on this peculiar drug.
  • Coping with addiction From the Center for Cognitive Therapy, California and other texts from Habit Smart 
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    Other drugs

    keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
    John Lennon, 1970

    The reason (...) is because I feel that if someone is going to use crank, they should know what they are using. It has caused stroke, heart attack, suicide, murder, imprisonment, insanity,and death to a lot of people I care about, not to mention what
    it does to the people around them. I know that most junkies don't care what they are doing as long as they 'get off', others can't get a grip on their habit, many have mental and emotional problems that they can't deal with and thus use, some have tried to get clean and failed. I understand this all too well. I fight my addiction every day. I know a lot of people and I don't know anyone who isn't affected by addiction. (transcribed from part of the text on amphetamines, US specific information at the site  created by Vaughan Bell emphases are mine)