So Many Young Suicides Cut Short

tainted cocaine - gosh, would that be like poisonous cyanide or past its best-before-date arsenic? Why it's all just a packet of dishonest lies!

Sounds a little like "Tough Love".

It's all about choices, choices,choices...

I just can't work up any concern over tainted illegal drugs. It's all just Russian roulette. Those who choose to use accept the risk.

Does the health authority actually think that cocaine users check for health alerts BEFORE buying and using? Maybe they could ask the dealers to attach warning stickers to the product.

In both official languages.

Cocaine users don't note conservative because conservatives are against legalization of cocaine, just another example of how evil conservatives are and how they ruin lives and kill people.

Oops, make that 'vote' not 'note' in my last (sarcastic) post.

You mean to say that the drug dealers don't care about the users? How come they didn't recall that bad batch of drugs?

Who put the poison in my poison?

""""In both official languages.""""

is Kate now advocating that Jamacian is an official language???:-)))

You know the Health Authority could be sued if the DIDN'T warn everyone....

"Even a dealer you trust"

Now that's funny.

Never insulate anyone from the consequences of their choices. If death is the result - so be it.

C'mon, Joe, be serious.

Take what you say to the limit - if you're overweight and have high blood pressure, and happen to have a heart attack - no paddles for you! Only fit people who have heart attacks deserve treatment.

If you're diabetic and you miscalculate your insulin - no glucose shot for you! Only people who can follow their schedule deserve treatment.

If you're in a car accident because your tire blew out - no ambulance for you! Only people who carry out a complete safety check before driving deserve treatment.

People make mistakes - and cocaine is a helluva big one - but I thought the whole ethos of Christianity was "hate the sin, not the sinner". Wasn't the point of the "prodigal son" parable that God rejoices when a sinner returns to the flock? Kinda hard to come back when you're lying on a slab.

I've seen guys who were overweight and had a heart attack drop 50 lbs and live another 40 years. I know guys who drove like madmen, had an accident, and slowed down to sane speeds. And, yes, I've seen guys who spent four years at high school stoned every day put down the pipe, sober up, and get respectable jobs and raise families. I don't believe in safe injection sites, needle exchanges, etc., but warning people not to use tainted dope might be a tiny first step in getting them off it. There's a big difference to me between facilitation, and education about the dangers.

We're just a week from the feast of St. Valentine. Put a little love in your heart, my friend.

geeesh.. I don't know about you guys, but when I buy coke I always read the label and look for that "organically grown" seal of approval first.

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seriously... "tainted"?

as opposed to that unadulterated, life enriching cocaine, i guess.

*

Isn't it about time these people switched to organic, fair-trade cocaine?

Must be left over from a break in to a vet or a drug store. You can buy it but it isn't all that cheap. First anthrax and now de-wormer. Either reaction and effect are being tested or someone really doesn't like addicts.

Boy Kevin you really don't give drug users much credit, are they all retarded apart from using drugs, or can they not see the dangers that may present themselves?

I believe Joe is a dad and probably a grandfather and I'm willing to bet his kids and his grand kids know how to critically think, as they heard a similar statement we read.

It's probably a side effect of believing in people enough to honor the freedom of choice and accepting the consequences, while realizing it's their responsibility.

Jeeze Kevinb I didn't know a bleeding heart had anything to do with real love. I thought the grand leap of faith came with believing in the individual up to the point they make the mistake that kills them. Nothing wrong with writing it off to sh-- happens, it's just the hard truth.

Don't the bad guys have quality control or something?

teens,europeans , blood, but not seals.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100206/teenaged_matador_100206/20100206?hub=TopStoriesV2

Mugs:

The problem is that the anti-drug propaganda is so one-sided and over the top that kids don't believe it. I didn't smoke pot in high school, but plenty of my friends did. At the time, the prevailing official line was "Marijuana will ruin your ability to think" (the famous commercial showed an egg with the voiceover "This is your brain", and then breaking the egg into a frying pan "This is your brain on drugs"). My friends tried it, got A's, played on the school's champion chess team, etc., and decided that not only did pot NOT blow your brain, BUT ALSO that the authorities were full of BS when it came to drugs.

Far from scaring kids off drugs, the misinformation from the top drove some kids to try other drugs. As one kid put it, "Hey, they lied to me about pot. Maybe they lied to me about X,Y,Z..." Ironically, one of the most popular drugs were pharmaceuticals snitched from Mom and Dad's medicine cabinet - Valiums, Percodans, etc. When I asked one friend how could he do this ("Don't you know it's dangerous?"), he laughed at me. "Dangerous? These are PHARMACEUTICALS! They're the purest drugs on the planet! Doctors tell people to take these!".

As they got older, the kids' shared experience replaced all official information, which was discounted as hopelessly biased, out of date, and full of lies. Instead, "Jamie tried X with Y, and had a really bad time, so don't do it", or "Fred did X with Z and got really high!" were considered authoritative statements.

I'm pretty sure my two girls are smart enough not to do drugs. When I approached my elder daughter - she'll be 16 next week - a few years to prep her for what might happen, I told her she would be offered things at parties, etc. "Oh, dad" she said "It's already happened", which shocked me (12 years old?!), but she'd had the good sense to turn them down. But I try to tell them truth. When they ask me why do people use drugs, I tell them that drugs can make you feel very good for a short time, and some people really like that. But I tell them there are downsides as well, which are not always apparent at the beginning. And that leads into the whole discussion about experimentation, habituation, tolerance, physical addiction, psychological addiction, withdrawal, lifestyle, etc. But I never got hysterical or preachy; I tried to keep everything matter of fact, and factual. It's working so far. Hope I can keep it up.

The addicts will smoke it anyway.