Destroy Drug Users - Not Drugs (?!)

Good morning Tuesday! Ah! Not such a good morning for all those youngsters busted last night, though. Yes, yet another high profile drug bust at the 'Bombay 72 Degrees East' pub thanks to Kiran Hundal and Afzal Khan (Adarsh Samaj Sevak Sangh - NGO). They've been applauded for their wonderful work on the first page of the Mumbai Mirror.

By now, you might sense this bitter tone lingering around randomly in my post. Its not a random bitter tone. I am utterly frustrated at the way drug users are treated.

"No Manisha, drug users are bad and evil people. They deserve to be punished, publicly humiliated and have their pictures printed in newspapers. They do not deserve a respectable future, because they DID DRUGS."

All those who think like that^ may stop reading, because I might just ruin your day for you and vice versa.

Temporarily setting aside the ‘sin’ these youngsters have committed, let us look at their lives. Their normal daily lives.

Many of these 'revelers' are normal working people, or students.
Competition redefines itself with every passing day.
They have problems - big ones, small ones.
They may have busy parents who rarely have time to sit them down and talk to them, leave alone discuss life's problems, complications and hurdles with them.
Stress is a disease running through every cell in their body.
The only cure they see, are easy stress busters.
That, unfortunately, includes alcohol and cigarettes and drugs.
Even worse, they aren’t as strong willed as you are, to not give in, or as chicken willed as I am, to not take a risk and find temporary peace and happiness.

This was no justification. This was just a backdrop. Some of the ‘guilty’ may not fit the category described above. Some may have just been there, because they wanted to spend the evening with friends, they may have known about the drugs, they may have not known. Some might have been there to have a good time and actually ‘dance’. Anyway, their fault.

Now let us take a look at what damage these youngsters have done to society.

- They have consumed drugs, gotten addicted.
- They have hurt their own bodies (needles aside).
- They have dozed off on sofas and chairs thus violating the rights of sofas and chairs to not be used to by drug users.
- They have blabbered rubbish, thus insulting the language in which they blabbered rubbish.
- They fallen asleep, danced like no one was watching, felt good and enjoyed themselves.
- Because of them, the world will end sooner than it was supposed to.

What they could have done instead, was consume large quantities of alcohol to get a similar high and go around vandalizing property, picking fights or creating a ruckus to vent their pent up frustrations, which would eventually lead to their arrest.

OR

They could smoke a pack of cigarettes, somewhere where smoking is allowed (since the ban was imposed), like their homes, but when their parents were away, since no Indian kid I know, would smoke in front of his or her parents, for reasons other than getting beaten up black and blue and a few rainbow colors. Then, they could spray the room with air freshener and deodorant and pollute the atmosphere further.

No! These foolish ones decided against hurting anyone else (physically) but themselves.

---

What was even more amazing was the newspaper report. The first page brilliantly flashes a picture of one of the detained with Kiran Hundal. Yes, the detainee’s face can be seen. They should have printed her name too, just for kicks. Pictures of the detainees have been splashed all over the eighth page of the newspaper, even when they didn’t know that they were being photographed. We can see loads of faces there. Oh, and names they did print, especially the celebrity offspring names or those who are "somebodys" in society. They make the best paparazzi targets ever! Looks like nobody at the Mumbai Mirror office knows to use the blur tool.

Thanks to the bust, we have loads of detainees, whose futures are close to ruined. We have drug peddlers going underground temporarily. We have drug prices hitting the roof, since a bust has its own sweet butterfly effect on everything, which will lead to a harsh hard earned money drain, for the regular patrons (we can live with that). We have parents, who will never dream of trusting their children out at night, but they won't sit them down and console them (they deserve it, no?). We have a society that will remind these youngsters of their ‘sin’ forever.

Conclusion:
Drugs are bad, they ruin lives. They also hurt those whose lives are connected to the drug users. DOING DRUGS IS WRONG. NOTHING ON EARTH CAN JUSTIFY IT. That does not give the law, the right to humiliate and destroy drug users, even before they realize that they want to opt of drugs and head for rehab.

Society was meant to heal and help people improve, not punish and cut off all escapes, other than suicide.


See, its not that hard to blur faces.


Kiran Hundal gets her share of publicity at the cost of this girl, on the front page. Unlike this picture, her face was not blurred.


The only sensible picture printed.


Those who managed to hide from the cameras were lucky.


One of the detainees makes an unsuccessful attempt to escape from the court premises, as he is chased by photographers - Mumbai Mirror
Hunt him down like a dog, right, you sick paparazzi leeches?!

To all those who will comment with - "What they did was wrong, why are they covering their faces now?"
I'll say, "Murderers and rapists are given a chance to cover their faces before cameras. I doubt these people would like to see themselves in newspapers related to such an incident, even if they are guilty."