Brookfield Basics

Our War on Drugs - Part Two

Posted by Tom Gehl on Oct. 31, 2009 | 2 comments

 http://www.brookfieldnow.com/blogs/communityblogs/63747747.html                                         

Above is the link to Part One of this article.  Since the time of its publication, we learned the story of Patricia Strosina of Burlington who, like Madison Kiefer's father in Whitefish Bay, was the primary agent in the death of her own child.  So dulled and stunted have our sensibilities become that this story, which only fifteen years ago would have seared itself like a brand upon our collective consciousness, passed quickly through its fifteen seconds of fame, leaving us numb and muted in its wake.  

We need to pause and consider it for a moment.  The episode tells of a woman who knowingly facillitated the death of her son by instructing him on the finer points of heroin injection.  Ponder that final, macabre scene.  Did she watch the drug slide up the droppers neck?  Or as Brooklyn rocker Lou Reed sang, did she watch her son go "rushin on his run"?  Did she make a desperate attempt to snatch him from the murky fog of that final, opiated embrace?  If we consider Plato's definition of justice - "a rendering unto each man his due" - we can each contemplate the implication this might hold for Ms. Spinosa.  

This is serious stuff.  For more and more young people it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.  We live in the cozy confines of Brookfield and Elm Grove - wonderful homes, manicured lawns, tony stores and automobiles, rolling acres of lush parkland, tree-lined boulevards.  But like make-up, these things enhance the good and cover the undesirable.  Drugs and alcohol are out there, growing steadily in availability and use.  And if we think they do not pass west of 124th Street, we are sadly mistaken.  And kids are not just walking around with a spliff in their pocket anymore, as rural, urban, and suburban America have all witnessed the advent of heroin, and a host of opiate-based prescription drugs.  These drugs are  insidiously addictive, behavior altering, and life-threatening - and the kids in their crosshairs are the ones we see every day walking down Pilgrim Parkway and Wisconsin Avenue; Gebhardt and Lily Roads.  

Isn't it time for us to pose some hard questions?  Isn't it time to ask why, in a period that has seen quantum leaps in government's collective expenditures at the local, State and Federal levels to combat this behavior, we have instead seen it escalate?  Isn't it time that, for all the "skin deep" attraction of programs like DARE, JUST SAY NO, and the endless stream of pithy television advertisements, we acknowledge they are little more than well-intentioned window dressing?  When will we summon the courage to look beyond the INTENT of such programs (which I do not question), and challenge their EFFECTIVENESS?     

Gven its failure in so many areas, why do we believe government can keep our precious kids away from this junk?  It's not the JOB of government.  It's NOT the job of the Department of Health.  It's NOT the job of Arne Duncan or Eric Holder.  It's NOT the job of Jim Doyle or Scott Walker.  It's NOT the job of the local DARE Officer.  And it is most CERTAINLY not the job of some insipid, Federally funded office like the Waukesha County Drug Commissioner.  These well-intentioned and capable people are like air support in a war - important but far from decisive.  

There is only one decisive antidote for the poison of drugs and alcohol - the active, engaged, and if necessary, intrusive involvement of adults who know better in the lives of individual kids - one at a time, one by one. Adults who are wise enough to see the signs, equipped enough to know what to do, and committed enough to be willing to insert themselves into the life of an adolescent, even though that intrusion might be enormously unwelcome. 

When considering young "'users" I believe there are two profiles:  those who do it for fun and rebellion, and those who do it because they have no reason NOT to.  American pop culture, while boasting components of value and legitimacy, is largely hostile to our youth.  Combined with the incessant encroachment of technology, the effect is a pervasive, Alan Ginsberg-like "howl", proferred to them on a 24/7 basis.  It drains, rather than replenishes their spirits.  Like a giant emotional Twinkie, it provides them only sugar - plenty of calories but no nutrition.  And in its wake we see disaffected and disassociated young people; kids who survey their present and their future, and when confronted with the question, "should you drink or do drugs", offer up as their best response "why the hell shouldn't I"?    

There is a second profile to consider which goes a long way towards explaining the first: those kids who are fortunate enough to have parents, guardians, or some other mature adult presence in their lives - and  those who are not.  For those that are - the answer lies there.  For those that are not, it's time to look at local institutions and agencies that can make a difference in their lives, and start funneling our financial resources to THEM.     

But the beginning point is the willingness to recognize what DOESN'T work.