Save the youth from crack cocaine in COVID times

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By Makeda Mikael

Crack Cocaine is making its rounds again in our youth community as the ravages of COVID fears, lock-down, social distancing and a gloomy outlook is robbing our youth of a future. In addition, the freedom to smoke as much weed (cannabis) as is available seems to have encouraged experimenting with the deadly coke-derivative which messes with the brain with one draw detox south florida

For a while now the visible presence of individuals suffering with the disease of crack addiction in St. John’s has been reduced to just one or two, and we have been fooling ourselves into believing that crack is under control. Crack is creeping back into the lives or rather the deaths of our youth as they seek to find that place of excitement and satisfaction which they knew before COVID arrived.

Experimentation with the dangerous drug and the youthful exuberance and challenge to overcome any dependency is causing them to get hooked without even the knowledge that they are hooked!

This country has never been youth oriented and has moved from a ‘small gang’ mentality where the continued use of children in the work arena was elevated to learning a trade, which was good in that we produced rounded adults who could find work with their hands.

Now with an education geared to mind games and expression, little of which is tied to the demands of our economy, we are producing routine workers whose interests are not in the work but the paltry pay which young people refuse to consider.

A harrowing issue for the youth which send them into depression and drugs is the duplicity which they see clearly in the adage before them daily, “do what I say not what I do” as they watch the deplorable behavior of those in leadership positions. When they do talk it is among themselves, they discuss the inefficiencies of the Internet and the fact that Antigua has the highest costs and prices for Internet but offers the poorest  and slowest service in the region. As denizens of cyberspace, our youth feels short changed by this travesty, and cheated by their leaders.

It is not an accident that the political youth in our country only get motivated every five years when the adults in the room shower them with money and promises which expire after the election is over, and where their numbers are used to top-up the vote.

This happens every election as both parties forget their pledges to reform the schools and the systems which currently are all about politics, and little about the future generations.

Antigua is a crossroad for all that is good and evil both in its geographic logistics, and it’s open acceptance of people coming from all over the world seeking something, and for the most part coming with nothing. The cocaine trade has clearly returned to the region and Antigua is once more a trading station, pulling our youth along in its deadly trail.

Thoughts and views expressed in commentaries, editorials or Op-Eds do not necessarily reflect the opinion of ANR, its management or staff.

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