Drug abuse and societal morality
Who is to blame for the sky high abuse of drugs.
I cannot pretend to know who is to blame for this challenge of our modern age.
So my next question will be.
? How do we solve this challenge.
For us to solve this challenge,there are a few factors we have to take into consideration.
First is the fact that the drug users each have to look within himself and rectify his mind.
?why do i think so,
Lets take a clue from a Chinese quote
“The ancient who wished to manifest their clear character to the world Would first bring their state to order.
Those who wished to bring their state to order will first regulate their families.
Those who wished to regulate their families Would first cultivate their personal lives
Those who wished to cultivate their personal life Would first rectify their minds.
Those who wished to rectify their minds will first make their will sincere.
Those who wished to make their will sincere
Would first extend their knowledge.
Then when Knowledge is extended
The will is made sincere
When the will is sincere The mind will be rectified
When the mind is rectified
The personal life will be cultivated
When the personal life is cultivated
The family will be regulated
When the family is regulated The state will know order and there will be peace worldwide”
From the Chinese
From the above,we see the bulk of the work to be done lies on the head of the drug addict himself. Without this inner work,no external effort by any authority figure will do any good. There are so many things that are both illegal and bad yet they are there in the market,in-fact it only makes the stuff more expensive for the buyers and smiles to the sellers pocket. The situation is worse in a countries where patriotism is a written document kept in the minds archive not to used for practical purpose or where the norm is an “i don’t care”.
A majority of these abusers fall into the category of those who are meant to become the leaders of tumoro. I wonder what a drug infested head will do as a leader.
Failure of responsibility
Drug abuse is a means to an end,the end which is to feel good and forget ones sorrows. The important point to note here is that there are other ways of handling challenges. Life is one long stream of challenges where if we must suceed,we have to learn how to overcome these challenges. Imagine a new born child who cries at birth,what makes humans cry:pain,pain makes people cry so if a new born is not spared the pain of life then what of an adult.
What makes us adult is our capacity to conceptualise things and design a new kind of life based on experience and not on what has been handed down to us. This is the primary reason adolescents always have issues with their parents.
Banking on this ability to consceptualise,an individual can use his mental strength to create a pathway for himself,create a pathway in the mist of life’s challenges. Like m Scott Peck said in his classic “the road less travelled” challenges call forth our wisdom,without challenges our mental strength atrophies,during challenge we go within and build new capabilities.
That is the secret of life,drug abuse never solves the problem it was meant to avoid,after taking drug,its effect lasts a while,gives one a temporal highness only to come back to the same problem after the highness has faded.
Today as the world stands on a crucial epoch when either the effort of ignoble minds will plunge us into oblivion or the effort of great minds will place us somewhere higher than we are,it behaves the minds capable of understanding the trend of time to inject their creativity,a creativity attained through knowledge gaining and a zeal to solve societal problems.
When corrective measures is implemented within,then external effort can help.
Secondly,the failure of the family is a cardinal issue here.
The rate of moral decadence in this modern times is alarming. A few decades ago,families were more sane than what we have today. The morality of today can be called a sham when compared to the morality of our parents,it is so bad that one wonder what happened to us.
What happened to family values,though surely what we consume today plays critical role e.g a young person lazy about in front of a screen watching morally berserk programs and afterwords feels he knows more than his parents.
Parents of today have a more difficult task to do in building up morally responsible children. Part of this work starts in planning to have less number of kids that one can manage properly,secondly,it involves building close relationship with our kids. When a parent has close relationship with their kids,the kids become more open to the parent and they talk about their challenges with the hope that someone cares for them. But when a parent and child have bad relationship,the child refrains from telling the parent anything.
Another important key in this parenting has to do with esterblishing “NO” as a guiding principle. It is very common to see children who behave with reckless abandon at a tender age and when one tries to correct them through advice,the parent,especially the mother will say,”leave him,he is just a child,he will learn when he grows”
Experience has shown that it is very difficult to,unlearn old thing and relearn a new ones. If a child was not taught toilet habits hence he pees anyhow and anywhere,it will take extra effort to correct that child when he is growing because his inexperienced mind will not understand why peeing in front of the house has suddenly become an issue when formally he did it with ease in front of all. The best practise is to teach him how to use the toilet or places designated for any activity whenever necessary. This will teach him that there is a time place for everything. However instilling discipline in kids is not going to be an easy one because of the distractions in our world of today since we live in an information overload age. Our parents as kids from the 60s – 80s had little access to television and gadgets but today,a kid has over 100 channels with no moral bearing to watch from dusk till dawn. Some kids have internet access so he can consume whatever online,even contents that will scare adults.
LASTLY,ON THE PART OF INSTITUTIONS
If institutions need to ban anything,the first thing that needs to be banned is the advertisement by drug companies. One major challenge we have is self medication. Some people never go to the hospitals,they only watch advert “e dey cure this, e dey cure that” so the next time they have any simple symptom,they rush to buy that particular medication without knowing that sometimes over 100 illness have similar symptom.
Some people never visit hospitals because they feel that the doctor will always see one thing.
why wont the doctor see one thing,how many of us eat healthy food,we prefer to load our stomach to the brim,in fact some people even feel that protruding stomach is a sign of good living.
Some people will spend 5 digits on perfume,clothing and fashion related stuff in a month but tell them to spend 10% of that money to buy fruits and vegetables,they will give you a thousand and one reasons why they cant,
“this fruit tastes bad”
“that fruit is somehow”
“i don’t like the taste of this and that”
They prefer to spend their money on toxins such as alcohol and other non essential stuff,cruise ight life and many more only to awaken when one major illness shuts them down and they have to spend huge amounts in hospitals,those who come out alive sometimes spend the rest of their lives trying to eat right in addition to heavy dosage of drugs taken,maybe for the rest of their lives.
Self medication in a society where readership is low is like a kid playing with fire and petrol. Some drugs have very dangerous effect some of which is written on the leaflet that comes with them,while some,you will have to go do your research to know the hazards associated with it,this is where the challenge is,many will never bother to research the drugs they take.
Looking at it the other way,maybe some people prefer not to go to the hospitals is because of the way doctors react to health issues.
Imagine someone who has simple apolo, goes to a hospital and the doctor is quoting “conjuctivities”…..jesss , conjuc what
That name alone can induce stroke or cause High blood pressure.
Secondly,maybe people get offended by the holier than thou attitude of some doctors,from the way they stare at you,like a piece of rag, some doctors have this permanent stare at their patients like the patients are insane or something is irreparably wrong with them.
So,some people may want to save themselves these embarrassment and treat themselves at home.
In addition to banning adverts,pharmacies should only sell drugs to people with doctors prescription.
This last option may be applicable decades from now hence we can utilise the first and second option of first,let the drug user rectify his mind and let the family regulate her abode.
