Drugs

This is going to be a difficult article. I recently heard about a friend of mine who has decided that drugs aren’t so bad, and he has chosen to use them. He says this is a completely sober decision, that he has done his homework on this one, that he isn’t addicted or anything, and that he is reasonably convinced that drugs aren’t the “ultimate bad thing” that many people put them off to be.

Gosh. I just want to say, just say no.

But it isn’t all that simple. Just telling someone what you believe to be true, especially a smart, intelligent man who has his life together? Saying, “Just say no” is like saying it might rain or it might be sunny. The words themselves don’t really mean much.

I thought I’d write about why I think the way I think. It isn’t something that I’m reiterating because I’ve been told to do so, it is because of my own life experiences, and the experiences of those who I’ve known through my short time on earth.

Let me promise you that I’m not here to judge you. I’m not trying to force you to believe like I believe. I’m trying only to encourage you to consider: What we do at each point in our lives has lasting impacts on us.

Are drugs “bad”?

Are drugs in themselves any worse than all the other crap we do to our bodies, like breaking ourselves in extreme sports, or eating hamburgers and other shitty food, or having these infamous sedentary lifestyles where we don’t get the exercise our bodies are supposed to get, or hanging out in the sun and getting these dark tans when later we’ll be faced with skin cancer, or living in congested cities and breathing the terrible polluted air that we’re forced to breathe, or drinking soda and sugary foods that have been proven time and again as terrible for our cholesterol and diabetes and internal organs?

I mean, really, are drugs any worse than all that other stuff?

Who knows.

When it is all said and done, you are going to die of something. You’ll get run over by a truck, or your parachute won’t open when you go skydiving, or you’ll drown in Cozumel on your honeymoon with the woman of your dreams, or maybe you’ll be a lucky one and you’ll die of old age after enduring a life of happiness. But in the end, we’ll all die.

With all that crazy stuff out of the way, are drugs bad? Really, who knows. But ask it a different way. Will doing drugs have an impact on your life? Yes, absolutely. Doing drugs will definitely have an impact on your life.

My friends do drugs

There is this saying in Spanish, maybe you’ve heard it. Dios los cría y ellos se juntan. In America they say Birds of a feather flock together.

You might think hey, my friends are doing drugs, and for me to have my friends I need to also do drugs. You are right to know that you are the company you keep. If your friends are doing drugs, you are likely going to be a drug user too.

Let me ask it a different way. Do you really want to be friends with drug users? Like it or not, most people do not do drugs. I don’t do drugs. Most of my friends don’t do drugs. If all your friends do drugs, man, go to a library or something, or a church, or something. Find new friends. In fact, one of the few nice things about church is that you are likely to find friends who are not doing drugs.

Friends have their own lives

Here’s a tale for you. Say you and your hombre are out drinking, maybe dropping a little 25i, smoking some Spice. This is your best friend, he has your back. He’s been there for you. He’s your wingman. He sells you only safe drugs, none of those laced up drugs. He isn’t hard on you for cash, he knows money is tough so he’ll hook you up even if you haven’t been paid.

The both of you are driving in your car to a party, and your buddy has a zip of marijuana to share with your friends at the party. You know things are going to go well for the both of you because you’ll be meeting up with your mamacita at the party.

Then, the lights come on. The policia are pulling you over for something. Whatever happened, headlight burned out, tail light burned out, ran a stop sign, but whatever happened, the policia decide to pull you over.

You really think if things go down like this that your amigo is going to take a bullet for the drugs? Or do you think your amigo is going to put the XTC under your seat and tell the federales, “Hey man I have no idea what is in the car, it isn’t my car”.

Let me clue you in. He is going to do exactly that. He is going to ditch the drugs wherever he can. Why? Because he’s going to think, maybe the policia won’t do anything, or maybe the policia won’t find the drugs, or maybe whatever, but if he comes clean with the policia right there, he is going to go to jail.

Am I calling your friend a shitty friend? No. I am not. I’m saying, this is real life man. When shit goes down, your friend, he isn’t saying that it is your drugs, he is just saying that it isn’t his drugs.

And in case you think you have a plan for when this happens, that you guys have worked out some kind of deal ahead of time? Yeah. Right. Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” And that is exactly how it is going to feel when you get arrested for your friend’s drugs.

Supplier ties

Here is one that I lived. This happened to me.

A little background here. In the United States it is common for apartment buildings to demand multi month leases, usually 12 months or longer. I had lived in an apartment for about 9 years, and I was getting ready to leave the city. The apartment building decided to demand the 12 month lease, and I was not willing to sign that lease. A friend of mine owned a home and was willing to rent me a room month-to-month. I took him up on that offer.

I quickly found out my friend was using drugs. This wasn’t a good thing, we both worked for a company that did random drug testing. I tried to talk with him about his using. He didn’t want to change, he said he had things under control. And I didn’t really care all that much. At the time, I was in graduate school, I had a busy life, his drug use didn’t affect me. So he continued to use, and I continued to pay rent. I never used drugs with him, we had our separate lives.

About six months into our roommate situation he came into my room with a shotgun! I remember, it was a rusty looking shotgun, he kept that gun in his boat. And I was like, what the heck is this about?

My new landlord, my long time friend, gave me the story. My friend told me that he always paid his drug debts. He had money, actually he had good money. He bought from a local guy who he had known for many years, an hombre from high school. Well, the local guy got in debt with his supplier. Apparently the local guy tried to make a deal with someone else and the deal went badly. And it turned out the local guy told his supplier that some of the buyers hadn’t been paying their debts, and my buddy was one of the people who had not paid.

The local guy called my buddy and told him to watch out, because the supplier was going to try to collect. My friend told the local guy that he had no debts! But that didn’t matter. The problem was, the local guy was in trouble and was looking for options. The local guy told my friend that he was trying to “buy time” with the supplier. He said he just needed a little extra time to get the money to pay off his debt. But he said that the supplier was more than pissed off.

So my friend decided he was going to “protect his property” if the supplier came after him for this debt that he did not owe.

I told my friend, as he was standing there with this rusty shotgun, man, you are in a bad way. You think you are going to defend your property against a drug supplier with that rusty shotgun? If they come for you, they aren’t going to come alone. In his irrational thought process, my friend said well, if they come, he’ll at least take one of them out before they get him.

Really, this really happened.

That happened on a Tuesday after work. I moved out on Saturday.

My friend never had the confrontation with the supplier. But he did go get help, and he realized that just the fact of buying drugs is dangerous. You wind up with people you don’t want to know in your life, or in your circles.

Imagine if this happened with a family, or with a wife, or with children around. Do you think knowing drug users with kids around is safe? It just isn’t.

Visas and immigration

Do you know what happens if you get caught using drugs? Or even just having drugs in your possession? Even someone else’s drugs? Or like earlier, if drugs wind up in your car or your room because your friend stored or dropped them there? Even if it happens by accident?

If you are in the United States on a visa, you are likely to face a bad situation. First, the United States will prosecute you. You’ll have a drug record. And then? Then they’ll deport you. You likely won’t be able to petition for another visa for at least ten years. The end of your time in the United States.

The same thing happens in most countries. You wind up in prison for many years. Don’t believe me? Go search for penalty for drug use in any particular country. It isn’t good.

And this is only if things go well. Things could go very worse.

What is the take away? The take away is, if you will ever want a visa to another country, don’t do illegal things. Regardless of whether drugs are “bad”, the impact drugs will have on your Visa opportunities are profound. If you have a drug conviction in any country, your United States visa vanishes. It is revoked. Don’t believe me? Then you don’t know the half of it.

Any illegal activity will immediately get you in more immigration and visa trouble than you’ll ever wish to know. Drugs are one of the worst of them. It doesn’t matter if they are “illegal drugs” or if they are prescription drugs that are being used illegally, both are classified as illegal by the government.

Current employment

Then there is employment. In all the jobs I’ve ever had the companies demand drug testing at the beginning, and random drug testing throughout your employment.

What happens if I get caught using or even having drugs? I get fired. Very first thing. Immediately. I don’t even have to be convicted, I only have to be arrested. The companies in the United States will simply terminate your employment.

Sounds harsh? Consider if you are the boss man. Let’s say you own a pizza company. You have one of your employees deliver a pizza. And the guy has a car accident. Guess what? You will get sued. Why? Because everyone gets sued when there is a problem It is just like that. When anyone lawyers up, everyone gets sued.

Then during the course of the investigation the prosecutor finds out that your employee, who you sent out to deliver pizza, had a prior drug conviction or was caught with drugs. Immediately, there is going to be concern that the delivery driver was high when he was driving.

And you, the owner of the company, is likely to be held responsible for sending this guy who you should have known about out with a car.

And as the owner of the company you are going to have to pay for being negligent, even if your employee was not “high at the time of the accident”. It is just that way. You think it isn’t like this? It is exactly like it is. I’ve been that boss who got sued. It was not a good situation.

Go ask a couple of employers what happens if you get arrested for any drug charges. If you don’t want to ask, then maybe you should realize that hesitation in you is maybe god’s way of telling you something is not so right about using.

Future employment

Did you just find out that your current employer doesn’t care about drug convictions? Let me promise you, that is not normal. Of all the jobs I’ve had, there are none that would have hired me if I were a drug user. It is even worse though. Many companies will simply discard your resume if you have had prior drug convictions.

Why? You think that is mean or harsh? Man, you have no idea. Companies won’t hire you for having a bad resume. Consider you as the boss though. You have to hire someone. If two resumes come to you with similar experiences, but one of the guys has been arrested for something — for anything, drugs or anything else — who are you going to hire? Come on, if you say you’d hire the guy who has been arrested over the guy who has no arrest record, you aren’t telling the truth. If I had to hire someone, I’d rather hire someone who did not have a police record. I’m not trying to judge anyone. It is just why not take the guy who has no record?

Illegal activity will get you banned in larger companies. It isn’t about judging anyone. It is about following the basic rules. If you are going to take risks, don’t take dumb risks like those involving drugs. Take smart risks.

But you said your friends are drug users. What about them? Man, going back to friends, go model your life after people who are successful. Dios los cría y ellos se juntan.

I have this saying: If you want to be a better billiards player, play billiards with better billiards players. Same goes for everything. Picture yourself in ten years. You’ll want a career by then. Don’t do something stupid today that might have this kind of terrible impact on your life tomorrow.

Health

What about health consequences? I don’t know. I have limited knowledge of health consequences, I’ve not researched health consequences in general for drug users. I know heroine is horrible, and a surefire way to die. I know that intravenous drug use will get you dead pretty quickly too.

I know that most drugs you’ll buy on the streets are laced or packed with something. Crack and cocaine are likely laced with Fentanyl, a deadly drug. Molly? Yeah, Molly isn’t somewhere you want to go man.

What to do instead

Gosh, there are so many things to spend your money on! Are you and your girlfriend spending ten bucks a day on drugs? That isn’t so much. Ten bucks a day. But ten bucks a day for a month will get you a stay in a nice hotel. Or a few very beautiful dinners. Or buy you a great guitar. Or a new computer. Ten bucks a day for two months will get you a plane ticket to almost any country in the world.

But what about the immediate right now wow factor? I mean, you are using drugs because you want the high now, not to go on vacation next month. Man, get yourself some beer. Or vodka. Or something that is legal. Or get drunk. Find different friends. Man if you need to, find yourself a new city, a new country.

You just don’t want this. Drugs are a gateway to a very bad life.

Try to picture yourself as an older man, say fifty years old. What have you done with your life by now? By fifty? Of all the things you’ve done by then, whether it is getting married, or having children, or building a great company, or going on a cruise with your mom, are you going to be proud of using drugs when you talk to your younger self?

Yeah, there are people who do just fine using drugs. But doing just fine using drugs is not the normal. Normally, drugs wind up being very bad news for everyone.

It just isn’t worth it.

Just say no.

Love you man. I really do. I think of you and your family every single day. I want the best for you and all of your family. Drugs aren’t the best. Go have a few beers. But figure something else out. Anything other than drugs.