I watched a show on Public Broadcasting last night about Ecstasy, it was eye opening.
I support the youth being able to dance all night at raves and clubs, I loved clubs when I was young, but the Youth need to be taught to avoid the Ecstasy and other bad drugs. When I was young everyone was doing cocaine, and then later it was meth, and I had to be smart enough to just say NO! and not use the drugs. I partied and I went to the clubs, and I threw parties, but I never let myself get addicted to drugs. I smoked cigarettes for 20 years, but eventually I quit that, but that was it, I never got into the drugs. That is what we need to teach the Youth, we need to teach the Youth to dance and have fun, but just say NO! to the drugs. Pot is legal, and they can never over-dose on pot, pot is safe enough. And they can drink alcohol. But, the pills need to stop.
One thing that we can do, is we can use the arts to stop the drug use. We can use music, movies, poetry, television shows, public service announcements, etc, to teach the Youth to just say NO! to drugs. Recently a little girl died in a restroom from fentanyl, they found her in a restroom at her school on the floor dead, they need to make a television show about that girl, and then put the television show on television for the Youth to watch when they come home from school. We can use television shows to teach the Youth to avoid the drugs. And there can be a huge public movement to get the Youth to avoid drugs.
And the pills are horrible, they never know what is in the pills, and one pill can kill a kid.
The kids think the pills are fun, but it is all BULLSHIT.
There is a club here in Hollywood called the Viper Room and it was owned by Johnny Depp, and River Phoenix over-dosed and died in front of that club. There is nothing cool about drugs. Whenever I go to the Viper Room I see that spot on the sidewalk where River Phoenix died. People need to have fun without the death. You do not have to over-dose to have fun.
In Amsterdam the police are not making much progress, but instead public education programs to teach the Youth are what is making the most progress.
If you can change how people think and feel, then you can change how they behave. We need to teach the Youth the truth about the drugs that they are going to come into contact with at the night clubs and raves, it is fine to go dance and have fun, but we need to teach the Youth to just say NO! to the drugs. The artists can help in the battle against the drugs that are killing our Youth.
Salute,
Tony V.
