My sixtieth birthday is right around the corner. Wow! Sixty. I almost died at 52, so I'm pretty excited to turn sixty. I got over growing old. Now I see it as a battle won. I'm content with it. At least as content as you can get. Growing old does signify the end coming along. There's no getting around that. No amount of technology,or science, or praying, is going to change that fact. We all were born equal regarding death. But the whole of it is hardly about death. It is about life and living it. That's the hard part. What to do with your time? In the end, that's all you've really got. Time. How to use it best? If you live life to the fullest, regrets come with it. I don't know how you could live life without regrets. I don't see that happening. You shake them off and you try to do better. Seems that is what being human is all about. You do, and redo. Do and redo, until, ah, I think I've got it. I feel happy with that. Happy is what you're after. Not a tee-he kind of happy, but a contentment, a feeling that this is it, I'm doing what I need to be doing. I'm happy with who I am. I'm a decent husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter, employee, friend. Do you work at staying positive, not bellyaching, trusting others, doing good? Are you demeaning? Do you hold color, religion, race, sex, sexual preference, against others? Do you seek out something greater than yourself, because in the end, if we are all we've got, we're pretty much screwed. None of this comes easy, and none of it is comfortable. Being a decent human is hard work. And it doesn't get any easier with old age. It only gets a bit more pressing. But it's never too late. The calling to find happiness must be headed.

THE FIX

So what do we do about drug use, abuse and sellers? The fix is not as easy to come by as "the fix." I can go down to any main street U.S.A. and have what I need within fifteen minutes. You can get any drug you want, at Alice's Restaurant.

While it's hard to pin down why a person may use drugs, there is no such mystery surrounding why they are sold. They do it for the money. It's easy money, although a career wrought with danger. As it works out, in a recent study done in Chicago, the easy money theory is not all it's made out to be. Taking into account the time street sellers spend buying, selling, and defending their territory, and bailing them selves out of trouble, they made about minimum wage. And oddly enough, most of the dealers still lived with their mothers, long after they should have departed. Over the short haul, drug dealing looks to be lucrative. But like drug using, drug dealing is not going to work for long. It's a downward spiraling career choice, full of myths and misinformation about how it can take you from a miserable existence to one of glamour. It doesn't work that way. We need to expose that myth.

Putting drug sellers in prison is for the most part an unending process. You break the law, obviously you should pay. That's how it works. But the penalties need to be reasonable. The mandatory sentences, three strikes you're out mentality is wrong. Every situation is different. We need to allow for that. For granted, this takes some judgment and common-sense. That shouldn't be too much to ask from our judicial system.

Drug users are another story. Addiction is a disease. It can be helped. It should not be a crime to be an addict. If there's to be a sentence, it should be to treatment, not to prison. There should be conditions, but they need to be realistic. We know addicts for the most part are going to relapse. WE know they are not going to be happy, being forced into treatment. We know they are going to have a hard time finding a job, particularly if they have a criminal record. We know they will do whatever is necessary to protect their addiction and livelihood. The conditions under which treatment has to occur need to be enormously flexible. Unfortunately, most treatment programs, and the legal system, are enormously inflexible.

Cannabis use should be decriminalized. Make no mistake, there are problems with chronic, long-term cannabis use. But remember, there are problems with chronic, long-term use of alcohol and nicotine, two legal drugs. If we were to judge on sheer problems generated from use, alcohol and nicotine would win. The evolution of drug use, with the advent of crack cocaine and meth, has made cannabis something of a non-issue. Still, cannabis is the number one drug targeted in our "War Against Drugs." Our prisons are full of minor drug users and sellers. We need to radically alter our approach. I'm not convinced that cannabis use should be legalized, but I am firmly convinced that we need to make its use less of a crime, perhaps a misdemeanor. It would take a lot of serious thinking and discussion, but it needs to happen.

So, to summarize:
1. Try to get reasonable information about drugs, drug use, and sellers. Remember, everyone is giving you their biased viewpoints. Gather information from various sources. Government information alone is biased, as is information from any specific organization arguing a viewpoint. Look to see how they are substantiating what they say. I've given you you personal information from a career in substance abuse spanning 20 years.
2. In life, there are givens. One seems to be that we all want to somehow feel better, be happier. Drugs of all kinds seem to afford us that opportunity. They provide us with a short-cut, we think, to the promised land. A get rich quick scheme if you sell, a feel better scheme if you use. That's not likely to change in the near future. Let's face it, there would be no problem with drugs is people didn't want to use. The drug dealers would vanish. It is a problem that needs ongoing review and a constant push for innovative solutions. Little has changed in the field for the 20 plus years I was involved with it.
3. Drug abuse and dependence can be overcome. The best combination to date has been treatment and ongoing support. Remember, it may take repeated treatment episodes, and the support may be needed for a lifetime. But recovery is possible.
4. We need to rethink how we treat addicted people. Prison is not an answer.
5. We need to decriminalize cannabis.
6. And finally, we need to each take the responsibility for showing our young people that life can be fulfilling, rewarding, and happy, in a non-drugged way. That we are capable of facing the world without the use of drugs. If parents do not model this type of behavior for their children, the cycle of addiction will continue to grow. No prevention in the world, no amount of laws, will overcome our children watching us attempting to make our lives better by using drugs.

"WHEN PEOPLE GET MARRIED BECAUSE THEY THINK IT'S A LONG-TERM LOVE AFFAIR, THEY'LL BE DIVORCED VERY SOON, BECAUSE ALL LOVE AFFAIRS END IN DISAPPOINTMENT. BUT MARRIAGE IS A RECOGNITION OF A SPIRITUAL IDENTITY".
Joseph Campbell

THE REALITY

A war on drugs will never work. Maybe a war on indifference. Perhaps a war on negativity. Or how about a war on injustice? But a war on drugs is doomed to failure from the start. Because no matter how many drugs you intercept, no matter how many pesticides you drop on marijuana or poppy fields, or how many walls you build to keep drugs out, or how many people you put in prison, we will not stop people from wanting to use drugs. It seems to be human nature, to want to feel different, to want to feel better, be happier, to wanting to find a shortcut to answering "the great mystery." Drugs fool us into thinking we can take a shortcut.

I've always figured that life is about finding happiness. Not the tee-hee kind of happiness, but "the happiness," that contentment, satisfaction, love, security, joy, on top of the world kind of happiness. It's hard to maintain, but I'm sure you have felt it, at least at times. That kind of happiness doesn't come cheap. Because the path is filled with challenges, one looks for a shortcut. And there is no more available hope for immediate satisfaction than drugs. Drugs can take you away from your troubles, away from the challenges, the pressures, the failures, the heartbreak, the poverty, in a way that nothing else can. It's available, fast, but unfortunately, unforgiving. The happiness is short-lived, if at all. What seems like a heavenly experience turns out to be hell. You find yourself on a one-way street to nowhere. No one who becomes dependent is spared the trip. Not the rich, the poor, black, white, female, male, grandma, grandpa, husband, wife, kids. The line goes straight down.

People look for that high. While physiologically explainable, a high is pretty much different for every addicted person. I suppose it's not so much that the high is different as it is the high is used for different purposes: to forget, to remember, to have energy, to settle down, for sleeping, for staying awake, to have more sex, to not wanting to have sex, to attempting to looking for God, to wanting to forget about God. The reasons for use are endless. This is one of the unfortunate problems. There is an easy answer to ending drug use: simply don't use anymore. But there is no easy answer to why a person uses in the first place. This complicates treatment, making it hard to get at the root causes. But than again, maybe, in order to quit, you don't have to get at root causes. Maybe just quitting will suffice.

The high numbs us of our pain. It transports us to a place we thin is good, but turns out bad. As it ends up, the high can be approached in many non-drug induced ways. Runners talk about getting a high, meditation, yoga, relaxation can get you there. The mountains, the ocean, the forest, make people feel high. Achievements, accomplishments, successes, excelling at something, be it playing guitar, basketball, quilting, cooking, writing....a whole host of tings can produce this "natural high." Of course you have to do those things, you have to work at it. It's easier to walk out to the street corner, go to the bar, or get a prescription that you know you're not going to use correctly. It's faster, it's immediate. But it's not real.

You can stop one drug only to find yourself addicted to something else. Gambling. Working. Sex. Religion. Addiction is a mistaken belief that we can solve our longings for a better life, for a happier life, that we can "fix" ourselves, with a drug rather than with "blood, sweat, and tears." Such a belief is always a mistake.

The reality is there are hundreds of reasons why people use drugs. So where does that leave us? How can we beat something people want so badly? What can we do? Where can we get "the fix?"

MY DOCTOR SAYS I'M IN THE FIRST STAGE OF FOSSILIZATION.