Addictions
These are mysterious times! The world is not what it used to be almost a century back. There have been technological advances of titanic proportions. Things that were unimaginable a few decades back are realities of today. We have successfully given a boost to the standard of living in the positive direction. We have everything to make our lives less cumbersome and monotonous. Yeah, we might be the missing link between the aliens and the prehistoric Neanderthals!
As the sands of times slip through the palms of our era, the needs and necessities change to entail something completely unimagined. For instance, the widespread usage of recreational drugs was something never heard of before the First World War. When it kicked off, the military generals, in order to gain an edge over their counter-parts, started the use of experimental drugs. They administered those drugs, still in their infancy, to their soldiers and watched in awe as they morphed into fighting machines with super-human strength and impeccable survival instinct; who needed virtually no food, no sleep and no recreation, not to mention their animalistic physical superiority over their enemies. By the time the already battered super-powers dragged themselves into the Second World War, those experimental drugs were now mature and their effects were now known to the mankind. Japan used drugs like LSD and cocaine to motivate their Kamikaze-Pilots to carry on suicide bombings. The reason, those innocent drops of liquid prepared in a lab capable of changing how an individual perceives things, both in short and long term scenarios, and how his mind plays psychedelic tricks on his thought-process.
These drugs, in the post world war era, found their way out of those coveted laboratories into the backyards of drug-dealers who were after the monetary gains of sacrificing an entire generation to drug-abuse. The Mexican Drug Cartel, an association of mafia and business people, grew so strong just by selling drugs to the United States across the border that the money that it had controlled the entire government and economy of Mexico for a fairly long period. The widespread usage of recreational drugs led to a more serious problem of a generation full of addicts who would do anything to acquire the drugs they are hooked to. The immediate effect was a steep rise in the incidents of drug-related crimes. What the addicts did not realize was that they are signing a deal with the devil that would do them no good and would take away whatever they have.
The scene is not so rosy when it comes to other developing/developed economies like ours. India is developing at a speed that was never expected of us in the past. We have a whole new bunch of youngsters who would spare no expenses to have a break from reality as it is the “in-thing”. We have had numerous examples of acts of violence in the form of brawls/road-rage in the past that were influenced/aggravated by the usage of drugs/alcohol. In fact, the youth of today is facing a crisis never experienced before as they are being influenced by globalization and western culture where Hollywood is busy glamourizing drugs/alcohol, influencing naïve children/impressionable teenagers to try and match up with the people they idolize. As a result, younger and younger people are trying on drugs daily and end up getting hooked. This leads to a very dangerous trend. These relentless drugs, along with the teenage hormones, make them prone to acts of crimes and violence; sometimes even turning them suicidal/genocidal. Thus we see an abrupt rise in the crimes committed by minors. The bone of contention? Weak government policies, inadequate steps taken by the authorities to curb the supply of drugs, ease of availability of drugs, glamourization of alcohol/drugs in movies/TV, etc to name a few. If we do not want to lose our innocent younger generations to this vicious cycle of procurement and consumption, we will have to take those stern steps mentioned to make sure the anti-drug policies are properly implemented and executed with no room for callous lapses on anybody’s part.
