The 60's were like this here and maybe early 70's. it was also a time where a generation felt that significant drug use was all harmless, "mind expanding" and wherein a lot of people were counterculture and quasi anarchist. So a lot of parallels. it was also a big time for Meth, which is always among the worst of drugs and not the least for its deleterious effects on the brain and mental health. It took a long time for people to realize the falsehoods and how much deaths and destruction of lives Meth, and other chemicals took.
Man, there was a ton of suicide in the 60's and 70's either purposeful or incidental to use. When i grew up on any city block there was familial tragedy, losses of life, that kind of thing and it was endemic. Probably not in all neighborhoods but I grew up in a somewhat troubled one. It was a time of latchkey kids, of War impacted parents with PTSD trying to raise kids. Usually this involved providing basics, meals on tables and letting kids roam till any hour of the night because the parents were partying.
So much of what goes on is due to rampant drug usage of various types and the communities that have the worst problems with that invariably end up the worst and it can go all the way to complete societal collapse at least at local or City or county areas as many places in the US already demonstrate. The soft approaches to drug epidemic do not work. Any approach hasn't worked to eradicate, but we must work to mitigate. But that starts at the every person level and geting people to realize that using chemicals, or Fentanyl, etc, its not harmless, its almost never a solution, and its a matter of again building a society where people can be resilient, productive and not just seek drugs to deal with things. We become the society that reflects the individual cumulative impact on it. Right now its not going so well and the trajectory is not good. The good news is that things changed for the positive before and they can again. But its going to take hard looks on everything from school, to family to community and city ideals.
Finally, its interesting that each time after a once in a century pandemic that society had become so fractured with social problems and massive gang activity and proliferation of drugs that it takes an extreme approach to eradicate. 100years ago that was the FBI taking on gangland mobs that controlled cities. We're not that far from being back to that. it just has different looks now and because drug trafficking can now be so discrete its no more obvious whats going on on a block than people getting skip the dishes or being a driver..
edmontonjournal.com
