Why Drug Use Is So Dangerous to Home Owners - by Carla Base
Drug use may begin innocently. It could be that during
an illness, operation or time of stress, someone begins to take a particular
drug. They come to depend upon its pain killing effects. It makes life
possible. Sometimes it seems to wear off, and doesn't do as well as it used to,
and the user begins to increase the dose themselves. Little by little, unaware,
they can be using more and more. When prescriptions do not have refills or when
it is not yet time to refill the prescriptions, the person can turn to
obtaining it ways that are less than ideal.
Students in
grade school even experience stress. Maybe you can remember. You aren't as tall
as the others. You are fatter or skinnier. Your hair is frizzier or too
straight. Your friends aren't cool. Maybe you are being bullied. You hate it.
You are offered a cigarette as a dare or a pill after school. They want to see
what you'll do. You want to fit in. There are so many ways peer pressure can
get things started!
A sad story in
a major publication mentioned a nice looking thirty something year old lady who
was married and had children. Like others, she looked for ways to lose weight,
exercise and hold her family together while keeping house and working a full
time job. There was never time enough. There was never energy enough. With her
husband and herself both being professionals with full time jobs and benefits,
they had everything they really needed. One day her friend suggested something
that could help her have more energy and lose weight. She was not a friend, but
an ambassador of death. The lady took methamphetamine from her friend. She did
at first seem focused more, lose weight, look way better and feel so energetic,
it was like being a teenager again! Then she wanted more and more, soon craving
it, and then would do anything at all to get more. Her teeth deteriorated, her
flesh was taught over bony arms and legs and her face drawn. She was suddenly
looking so old she seemed her own grandmother. She lost her home, husband, had
her children taken away, was caught stealing and had burns on her aged looking
face from trying to save money and cook the meth herself. She had nearly burned
down the house, which they later lost. Her normal lifestyle had gone into a
serious tailspin, never to return.
People lose
loved ones, feel prone and alone, long for earlier times. They seek comfort in
alcohol, prescription drugs, or anything that can possibly make them feel
better in any way. Then they can be drawn to things that they would never have
been interested in before. Perhaps it starts as a prescription drug to calm and
keep them from being depressed. Perhaps they mix it with alcohol. Maybe it is a
borrowed drug from a friend to help that turns into some addiction. Soon, it is
necessary to get through every day.
Perhaps you are
in college now. You had friends in high school in a smaller town. Now you find
yourself alone tonight. You are not tired. You don't know many people. They are
all out or doing other things. You are offered a joint or something pretty
innocent looking. It comes from these people who drive onto campus and the kids
tell you about it. They deliver alcohol and grass. Campus security has no idea.
Maybe they have you get into their car. Mistake.
You live in a
crime zone. You know people hang out around the schools and the church, you
know gangs guard and protect the territory. There are shootings every night it
seems and someone else is going down on the streets. You get the paper so you
can learn the names of those involved either shot or doing the shooting. One
after another you seen teens and twenty year olds you know shot and arrested.
It is amazing how many. Gunshots ring out across the night onto the swing on
the front porch and hit babies in their mother's arms, toddlers gunned down in
the yard. Children are shooting children.
All of these
are real life episodes. We don't have to live in any particular area. We don't
have to fratranize with a bad crowd. The newspapers and TV are filled with
similar stories. We are inundated with stories even from people we are close to
about what happened at work or school, a family we know down the street, or a
relative.
The reason drug
use is so very dangerous to home owners is that it is rampant, in all parts of
every city, and it is hard to detect that it is right next to you. A nice
couple next door, a wonderful child, a college kid, and a realative are just
what you saw above. The fact is, sometimes crime is invisible and sometimes it
is not. Still, there are many times that drug use is unseen. You expect it to
be a young person and it is an older person. You expect it to be in a high
crime area of your city and it is next door. You cannot predict drug use and it
can be abuse of prescription drugs by both doctor and patient, or it can be use
of anther's drugs. It can be completely illegal drugs, or it can be legal drugs
like "Spice" and other words that indicate it is harmless, when in
reality, it is a hard core killer.
Record shops
and cool looking places with colorful T-shirts of bands and interesting things
to buy from clothing and music to hookah pipes are selling something that is
easily obtainable on the internet. China labels chemicals they mass produce and
sell on the internet so that it states it is not for consumption, but it is
coded to attract drug pushers. When the newest drugs, which are synthetic are
used, it gives an unpredictable effect to the user. There is no regulation, so
it is running rampant all over the world. It acts rather like the old LSD but
it is different. It may be "good" or may kill you the next time. It
may be laced with rat poison. But on its own, it is pretty much poison. With a
tiny change in the chemical composition, sellers of the synthetic drugs can
ensure that officials cannot keep up to outlaw the substances.
So callred
"bath salts" is one of these synthetic drugs that only looks like
bath salts. When used, you see people biting and eating off the faces of people
with have traffic altercations with, or simply eating themselves. It makes a
person insane, like a rabid animal. It is easy to get and cheap. Police have
had to shoot people who were attacking others and eating the flesh off their
faces in traffic. We hear a lot about "Zombies" and maybe this is
why. These drugs turn people who once had a life into flesh eating maniacs that
seem to have superhuman strength and attack others. It is literally, like the
cult film, "Night of the Living Dead."
We close the
doors and lock them prudently. We turn out the light. We hear a footstep or the
dog growl. It may be nothing or no one. But you can't be too careful. Think. We
are living in a new age and time. We may get up and go to work every day and
think it is the norm. But for many in your own city, the craving became way too
much. The relative that you never see has grown up. They remember you, don't
worry. They are on drugs and thinking of where you live. They are thinking up a
story for a defenseless older lady. They are remembering an expensive gift or
money you once gave them at Christmas. They are thinking of you alright. But
not in the way you want them to remember you. When people are on drugs, they
are so desperate that they are nothing like the person you once knew. You may
open that door to them, seeing their face and recognizing it. You may accept a
call and request for a visit. It seems odd, out of character, sort of weird
after all this time but you open that door. Stop.
As a home owner
you have yourself, your family and property to protect. You are not paranoid.
You are simply a normal working person. You earn your money. You don't want it
stolen and worse, your life taken because you thought you were strong and could
open that door when someone knocks in the middle of the night or comes by in
the daytime. Robberies are not always when you are not home. Remember these
people are not the ones you once knew. Maybe it is an old neighbor of yours who
looks you up. Why? Ask the questions in your mind. All these years and someone
wants to suddenly visit?
Consider this
as well. There was a lady who used to visit everyone who was sick, in nursing
homes and who were recovering from broken hips and arms, legs and recuperating
after falls. She was always there for them to sit and talk, read or visit them.
A true saint. But when she would leave, she would take many drugs with her from
each place. She wasn't found out for years. Everyone knew her as the
compassionate one.
If you open
your door to an old friend or long unseen relative, think again. Don't open
your door unless they have made a date with you to come over, and then have
another present. Tell someone, especially if it seems a bit out of character.
There is nothing worse than a home invasion by a person you know, realtive or
former friend. Yes, it happens.
There are three
ways to truly protect yourself. Adopt a new way of thinking. Be proactive, not
reactive. Do something in anticipation, not after the fact. Plan to get
stronger locks and double doors. Don't go with that aluminum storm door. Get a
nice safe one with deadbolts and use them. Make it difficult to enter your
home. Get casement windows that are harder to enter for thieves than the double
hung type. Get multiple layers of glass in them, filled with argon or other gas
that can pop loudly if broken to alert you.
They will be safer in storms and also resistant to thieves. Become
mindful and analytical. This is not paranoid or suspicious. There is a
difference. Thinking ahead to protect yourself and your family is smart.
Cleaning up the glass and having to replace a splintered door frame is not. Remember
to always lock anything with a lock. If your home is locked and your garage
also lock your car, even though it is inside the garage. If you have layer
after layer of slowing them down, it may eventually be just enough to stop
them, scare them off, or take up too much time. One, think proactively. Two, do
a re-evaluation on all your doors and windows, practices and habits. Close
blinds or get some nightly at dusk. Three, ask about motiviation. If soneone is
suddenly being nice to you, analyze. If you happen to have just had surgery and
you suddenly have a friend, look out for the visitor. Don't allow just anyone
into your home. Get a good solid alarm system that can call police and ask for
a panic button. Know how to use and and use it when you are at home or when you
are out. Night and day. Don't get a cookie cutter national hunk of plastic that
beeps. Get a professional to install the system. It will be more expensive. But
that first time you press that panic button it is worth it all and more. Be a bit
closer who you allow inside. If you happen to awaken to knocking or gunshots,
to screaming or hollering, to babies crying or to the police shouting to open
up, wait. Stop. Dont'
open it. Call the police.