45

Ok, I’m up now. Almost 1:30 p.m., and I’m up and about. It is not the first, or second or even third time I have been up today, but this time I’m staying up. Sleep has been a dubious luxury of late… my time has been stretched to the limit, but for now I am caught up. There is more coming - there’s always more coming, but for now I can take a little breather. Maybe I can get my equilibrium back. Perhaps tonight I can get to bed at a reasonable hour and sleep all the way through the night.

It’s a rainy, gloomy and wet December day in Sacramento. I have only two essays, a take home final, a photography portfolio and a column (this column) left to complete before I graduate with honors from California State University, Sacramento with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government-journalism. December 22 will be the pinnacle of a quest that has taken me to places both far and wide - figuratively and literally. It has been a quest that has spanned no less than 25 years. Today I turned 45.

Milestones such as these are cause for reflection and these sleepless nights are due in part, I am sure, to some of that. However, with the rapidly approaching conclusion of my undergraduate career, it is also a time to look forward. It is a time for optimism, but with uncertainty comes a certain degree of trepidation. I have been comfortable these past few years. Indeed, I know how to be a student. (Some may say it’s about time, but that’s a story for another time.) This uncertainty isn’t limited to my own future and where my path will lead me next - indeed, there are a multitude of good ideas and only a handful of bad - but in many respects it is spawned by a general restlessness that can be felt throughout the world.

Closer to home, there is an upcoming presidential election. Our nation is in dire need of competent leadership. This time there are more candidates than I can ever recall running and I cannot say that any of them is giving me much hope. We are in the midst of a housing crisis the magnitude of which, the experts say, is unprecedented - and the worst is yet to come. The nation is polarized based of false ideology where the most significant difference between Republicans and Democrats is how they spell their party’s name. And then there’s that pesky little undeclared war that has claimed nearly 4,000 American soldiers’ lives and maimed countless others.

More than entering the work force to begin yet another career, I am asking myself what I can do beyond making a living. In 45 years, I have seen some bad times and I have seen some good. The nation and the world are at the same time both better off and worse. We have taken a thousand steps forward in places and in others our feet have remained firmly anchored in cement. The United States has grown more powerful and prosperous than any other nation in recorded history - and in record time. I have seen nations built and borders dissolve, heroism and tyranny, compassion and cruelty. The question still remains: What can I do?

Although the answer isn’t anywhere near crystal clear, one piece of it absolutely is - write about it. If not for those of us running the show today, perhaps for our children who will be steering us tomorrow. For our grandchildren who will be paying for our foibles and for anyone who is a seeker, thirsty for perspective, hungry for knowledge - the words, other's and mine, will be there. We did not achieve what we have due to our own brilliance. It came from the generations upon generations of our predecessors. Where we gleaned their knowledge and wisdom, we have thrived and where we have failed to study their mistakes, we have failed miserable.

What can I do? Maybe it means nothing today, but perhaps my children, my grandchildren and countless generations of successive great grandchildren will benefit from my experience written here and elsewhere. By myself and by others. By the scribes, the philosophers, the thinkers and the journalists.

Maybe they will read what I wrote.

On this wet, rainy, gloomy December day in Sacramento.

On my 45th birthday, 6 December 2007.

DRUGS

It must be drug awareness season again. Periodically, it seems, a rash of public service announcements from the likes of the Partnership for a Drug Free America begin to flood the media outlets. Don’t get the wrong idea; this is very definitely a good thing. Drugs are bad, they do bad things and something has to be done. The timing is just curious, that’s all.

At the same time, the documentaries are hitting the airwaves. Some are new pieces about old problems - others are old pieces about current problems. The names and the faces have changed, but the destruction hasn’t. Nor has the knee-jerk reaction to the problem that is, by all accounts, growing exponentially.

Now is not the time to rehash the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the “War on Drugs” or Nancy Reagan’s ever-so effective “Just Say No” campaign. It’s not so much about the virtues of legalization, of incarceration or rehabilitation. I’m afraid I just don’t have any answers - I’ll leave that up to the experts and the (gulp) politicians.

I have, however, been around the block once or twice in my nearly 45 years on the planet, and that gives me a considerable amount of experience. It’s not all about the dope or the prisons or the crime created by the epidemic or the families destroyed by drugs (alcohol included), it’s about political consistency and the ability to change one’s mind.

I don’t like the government telling me what to do. I never have and I doubt that is going to change anytime soon. There are a number of political labels I could adopt, but it would be highly issue dependent and completely irrelevant. Suffice it to say that I don’t believe the government has any business regulating what I put in my body - even if it will kill me. I believe that to be my right.

Ok, I can hear it now. "He’s one of those guys who want to legalize everything so he can smoke pot all day." Well, perhaps once upon a time that would have been a fair, yet baseless accusation, but I haven’t smoked anything in a very long time - and I like my lungs nice and pink, thank you very much. Despite the preceding and despite my adamant stance against government intervention of this sort, I am not now for the legalization of any drugs.

It used to be the perfect solution - and so simple. Legalize drugs, tax them, regulate them and take the criminal component out of the picture. It was Utopian naiveté at its best.

Drugs are bad. They do bad things to even good people and even if legally available, the psychosis and addiction they introduce brings about an element of crime that is random, senseless and completely self-generated. And, yes, statistics show that alcohol and other drugs are involved in the vast majority of violent crime - especially domestic violence. Never mind the lack of productivity and the social costs.

Drugs are bad. Even marijuana. It robs our youth of their motivation and contrary to popular belief, it does lead to other drugs - not that pot isn’t bad enough by itself. Medicinal use? There probably is a legitimate one, but not the way it is administered in California.

And now, according to a report from the Partnership for a Drug Free America, about one third of teens and only slightly fewer adults think taking prescription pain medication recreationally is safer than illicit drugs. Extrapolation: It is safe.

Drugs are bad. So is locking up drug offenders. Treatment works and the trends seem to be moving more in that direction. There are, however, no easy answers and once violence or other crimes beyond simply using the drugs comes into the picture, well, there has to be some accountability. I used to think it was so simple…

Drugs are bad.