The Scene
The last week was a pretty successful one, personally. I closed a business deal. I’m disorganized so I am chasing loose ends. It’s fairly minor. Real estate.
I finished a Calculus paper. Started a second course of study. Neuroscience. I’m interested in the brain and behavior. Trauma and rehabilitation. How do people overcome adversity. How do they come back from “Hard Things”. Post war life, addiction. Traumatic chronic illness, Is there a recipe? An algorithmic soup as it were?
Last week my daughter starred in the Lion King as Scar in the Local Production. She has the ability to go into character. Maybe she will explore acting. I want her to have an easy uncomplicated life.
Oh, and our family home was raided by the Cops. Mid morning on a Tuesday. Ten units, K9, guns and a Hobbs Seal (no knock warrant) warrant to search) (assault rifles Inc. AR 15’s)
Why?
We have drugs in the community. Opioids; Fentanyl. Meth. Teenagers are dying in many suburbs of America. A number of teens got their persons and their houses searched that week in surrounding counties.
I was at school at the time. I knew our house was about to be searched. How did I know? Unusual activity in the neighborhood. When you go to treatments for drugs and alcohol over and over like I did, you learn stuff. How to be observant. You play spot the Undercover Cop.
My oldest son had been taking opioids off and on. He had been detoxed under medical advice in 2021. His initial encounter with heavy opioids was in a hospital setting for pain relief.
I told my teen to sort his shit out on the Monday. I cleaned my bathroom in case the cops would think I was a pig if they came through and went to class. I was more concerned about missing calculus than freaking out.
I called home at school break and I guessed by the tone of hubby’s voice that they were at our house so I left class and drove by. Asked the Sergeant how long they were going to be. He said, about an hour, so I picked up a coffee from the coffee cart and went back to class. I felt like a right cock for being late back to class.
Isn’t it interesting how the human brain works to protect the mind and consciousness?
The rest of the week unfolded. I scrambled to keep my family safe. My son got put up in Motel 6.
He had to get a lawyer. I went to watch my daughter perform in a play. That was heart wrenching considering the circumstances of our family.
I wished I could have done better in my Calc final. The injury in the parietal and temporary lobe hamstrings me in exams. Not to mention the hours I had spent cajoling my previously opioid addicted son to his senses, over his interaction with the cops.
He had been arrested at McDonald’s in the early AM before the search.
On Saturday following the search. I woke up with my nerves jangling. I decided to get my son out of town TODAY! He had a treatment bed pending, and being aware of details which I can’t or won’t disclose, (he is now early in recovery) I chose to lam it with him. He was free but because of his actions I was unsure how long it would be before we drawn back into the scene .
After my journey to treatment with him and living with my son for a year, I have come to the certainty that: 1. ) There are several agencies on the drug “scene” that are vested in it’s continuation, none of whom have my son’s best interest in mind. 2. ) The cartels are selling drugs widely in the ‘burbs of America. Maybe they have always done this. Only now the drug being fenced is deadlier. Micro-doses of Fentanyl enthrall some. (Small amounts shut down the central nervous system.)
Imagine if as a social drinker every 250 times you drank you were forced to chug a handle (1.75 liters) of alcohol) There is no guarantee you would come out alive. These are the odds: Or as the sheriffs of a border county say: “Will you get on the plane today”? The link is an interview by Jacki Daily of two border county sheriffs. The sheriffs liken this public health crisis to, a 757 every day taking off and dropping out of the sky and killing all on board.
AND NOBODY IS DOING ANYTHING!
3.) Teenagers like my son are being addicted and recruited. Addicted and recruited. In a profitable enterprise. It’s like a Santa sack pegged up on a tree or a Clothesline. It’s full of goodies and no-one wants it to fall and spill the goodies everywhere. Every now and then a peg is removed and discarded. A teenager dies. Someone like my son loses his mind.
And Mom’s like me have to do an fifteen hour road trip with a methed up opioid addict on the come down because medical help is so hard to access even with health insurance.
Don’t get me wrong. It was fun. It was a little quirky back-tracking though a prison town to distract him, to see if we could score when an afterhours clinic wouldn’t prescribe suboxone. (We of course didn’t go on an illicit drug buying mission, but I have heard of other Mom’s resorting to extreme measure to keep their children alive, stable and seizure free)
What now?
Fentanyl deaths have touched our lives. I’ll ensure my son knows the meaning of accountability for having drugs in his room. But I won’t let anyone fucking touch him, anymore. And I had hoped that I could pull together a narrative that might resonate with other Mom’s and after checking with a lawyer; What might be revealed other than anonymously that would be useful to other Mom’s and Dad’s and politicians to change the War on Drugs to how to Minimize Harm from Drugs.
But I digress. What I learned today from my own Drug and Alcohol Counsellor is that while there is chaos in the suburbs. Death, detritus and mayhem:
This is but the latest chapter in the War on Drugs and there is NOTHING that can be done about it.
Everybody wants drugs to stay illegal. Nobody wants to close the border until the measures are put in place to regulate the flow of guns and drugs and so kids will still die, go homeless, or go to prison.
With the Federal Governments blessing. The cartels are quite open: “It’s okay to kill the American”, a cartel member said to one of the sheriffs.
And why should they care”, said my friend. “We”, (Our Government) hasn’t!
There will be more fentanyl deaths.
And right now I’m jaded. No-one cares so I’ll look out for my own. I’m sober, in recovery and I’m going to get my nails done in Santa Barbara and go home and plan my next trip to a border county.
Why am I going? a taste for travel. Thirst for knowledge. To check in on my son. 
And if anyone chances on this who has some input into public policy. The only way out is this: Full legalization. Regulation. Total border and customs control until the supply side is regulated.
Forget the bleeding heart about the importees or the deportees.
Lastly. Stop pinning it on the fragile addict. we are sick to fuck of playing doctor, lawyer, politician and gangster.
