By Keetah Bryant (FRL)
In the past, as I’ve stood at the check-out at the average corner store, I would ponder over the little roses in glass tubes, wondering who on earth would buy such things. ($2 for a stupid little rose? These were my thoughts). I verbalized this thought one day to my sister as we were buying drinks for our kids.
“Those are crack pipes, not roses...” She looked at me as if I were dumb. “They sell little bags of steel wool too,” she said as she motioned towards the plastic sacs tacked to the wall. Fifty cents. She later explained to me that drug addicts can make a pipe for smoking their drugs, just from a few things that can be purchased at the corner store. I was shocked. The fact that someone had taken the trouble to tear steel wool into little tiny bits, shove those bits into little bags, and then sell those for a profit to people who are desperately using crack, made me sick.
Find a market, sell them what they want. The capitalist profit-centered attitude was prevalent even here, among the glass tubed roses and individual packets of steel wool.
I recently met a man whom I first came to know through the local paper. A concerned father who felt compelled to remove crack pipes from neighborhood convenience stores and other family-oriented places, Bob took his fight to the press, to the internet, and to the street. To this day, he and his organization, The Surrey Coalition of Parents, continue to press the community to make changes in policy that will prevent local merchants from selling drug paraphernalia in view of the seeing eyes of our children.
Do as We Say and Not as We Do
It’s not really surprising to anyone that Surrey has a large population of drug addicts - crack heads as they are affectionately called around these parts. Local police officers entice them to clean up their “camps” on hot days by offering them Slur-pees in return for their cleaning cooperation. Because of the prevalence of this problem in Surrey, the municipality is considering opening community drug courts and more drug treatment centers. Through experience and education, policy makers have come to understand that treating drug addiction as an illness rather than a criminal act is often much more effective for both the user and the larger community.
Regardless of the method of treatment, prevention is also a primary concern, particularly among the youth. Education is essential, as is setting a standard as a society that reflects our values in relation to crack use. Unfortunately, this two-tiered approach to prevention os far from being realized.
By selling drug paraphernalia next to the chocolate, it normalizes the merchandise, it makes it socially acceptable. More socially acceptable than even pornography magazines, that at least lay masked from small eyes, behind the counter. We as parents are expected to teach our children that crack is dangerous, and inappropriate for their consumption, yet everything you need to become a junkie (but the crack itself) is available at most local corner stores. What does that say about our social attitude towards using crack? What sorts of implications will this have for the efficacy of prevention education? No one ever listens to a known hypocrite, what would make future generations any different?
I’ve never been a believer in rules of any sort, and I personally would prefer simple anarchy. But what’s worse than rules and restrictions on personal freedom is the classic double standard which seems to be ubiquitously present in our society. The presence of the this double standard is most evident when there’s a conflict between profit and anything else that might stand in it’s way.
Fundamentally, and in this context, Bob and The Surrey Coalition of Parents have every right to expect better of their society. Given the obvious intolerance our society has towards illicit drug use (check out those mandatory minimum sentences Harper proposed for drug “offenders”...), it would logically follow that the policies and laws surrounding drug use would reflect that intolerance. This is obviously however, not the case. What we the people must come to understand is that our values, our morals, our children and their susceptibility, are far less important that the profit motive in this society. And until the profit motive loses it’s stronghold on our collective psyche, we as a people will continue to be subordinated to the desires of those who wish to profit off of us, and our children.
F.Y.I
For more information on Bob, The Surrey Coalition of Parents, and the on-going battle between the people and the businesses here in Surrey, check out this site:
http://www.visionaryrecords.com/crackpipesincandystorescrusade/COPrecords.html
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