Confused

I don’t understand why people, most of all teenagers fall prey to addictions like alcohol, drugs, etc. What is that in these substances which entices them? Lures people back to them again and again?

Many would argue that after a hectic week of working, they need to party hard. I agree with this philosophy but don’t understand how that would lead to addictions. There are scientific reasons defending the users in having an erroneous or dangerous gene.

I understand all of that but sometimes it crosses my mind, if teenagers are lead to it just coz they want a new experience, something exciting that they can boast about to their friends. Is it a lack of worries and problems in a financially stable society which lead to such things? Why did we not have the occurrences of addiction back in the 60s or 50s or 40s? I guess in those days, people had a lot to worry and work for. Their nation, their family and their pride. They didn’t have enough money or resources for their food, leave alone drugs.

Today when we are self-sufficient, making waves in the field of technology, science, medicine, philosophy and god knows which other fields every day, shouldn’t we be happier and more satisfied? But these days the relations become sour, people are so busy getting high on substances that they rarely acknowledge their kind and generous support system. Or maybe their support system is itself the very cause of their addiction. But aren’t these plain excuses?

I once read that addictions are a disease and the addicted should be treated as a patient and not as a menace. I wonder if it’s as easy as it sounds for the families of victims. Are they never angry at the one who takes their love for granted and goes back to the substance abuse time after time. Can everyone be so patient?

When I see the addiction figures rising and watch the innumerable stories of teenagers getting addicted at the early age of 12, 13, I wonder if it’s only the genes to be blamed. Does the current lifestyle have any role to play in this? I am surprised that today even when the awareness level of diseases, substance abuses being high and the freedom of choice being a common thing, people are still subjecting themselves to this malicious way of life.

What is the cause? Boredom, confusion, lack of excitement, lack of focus, what? I sure am confused on this one.

Free!

Like a Bird, i wanna fly,

Just Me, in the vast blue sky.

Lost in myself and the beauty around,

No worries, no chains keeping me bound!

My face beaming as the sun shines on me,

Oh what a feeling of being alive!

Indifference

I was watching a documentary about the off shoring of medicine testing to India. This means that the new drugs produced by the big time pharmaceutical companies are brought down to India and tested upon the locals here.

Why?
Well the reason being given that India with its huge population has a wide range of diseases and innumerable different and strange disorders which is favorable for testing the drugs and this scenario is rarely found anywhere else.

Are the patients aware?
Obviously the patients who are tested with these drugs are illiterate, poor, ignorant, innocent folks who don’t really understand what has been written on their medical papers, when they are asked for their thumb marks. These folks treat their doctors like God, so they don’t really understand or question when the doctors stop their regular medicines and after a while prescribe them new ones.

Risky Business?
Well yes!! Before the patients are put on the new drugs, they have to be detoxicated of the old ones they were taking so as to actually observe the results and changes in the body due to the newer drugs.
The regular medicines which the patients were taking were the proven and tested drugs of which the doctors are sure of the results. When these are stopped for some amount of time, the patients are taking no medicines for their illness!! And the newer ones they take are something which even the doctors are not 100% sure of!!

Doctor’s Stand?
The doctors say that they do first inform the patients as to what is going to be done and also that they are not sure of the positive results of the new prescription.


I guess the ignorance, poverty and the keen faith on their doctors make them agree to whatever they suggest. Sometimes they don’t even fully understand what their doctors are saying and just give in to them.
The whole thing seemed even stranger on watching a foreigner take up this cause and chase the doctors, the companies, the patients affected, taking their views and making this documentary and last of all I was watching it in the UK! Are we Indians even affected by such issues? Just because poverty, ignorance is something we see everyday do we treat it as normal? Do we even care about things other than our own comfort? I guess over the years we have become exceedingly indifferent.