Drugs are essentially poisons. The amount taken determines the effect.

A small amount acts as a stimulant (increases activity). A greater amount acts as a sedative (suppresses activity). A still larger amount poisons and can kill.

This is true of any drug. Only the amount needed to achieve the effect differs.

But many drugs have another liability: they directly affect the mind. By reactivating incidents from a person’s past, below his conscious awareness, they can distort the drug user’s perception of what is happening around him. As a result, the person’s actions may be odd, irrational, inappropriate and even destructive.

Drugs block off all sensations, the desirable ones with the unwanted. So, while providing short-term help in the handling of pain, they also wipe out ability, alertness and muddy one’s thinking. Long-term drug use robs life of the pleasures and joys which are the only reasons for living anyhow.

In the end, one has a choice between being dead with drugs or being alive without them. As terrifying as the consequences of drug use are and as hopeless as they can seem to the addict, there are solutions to the drug problem and, on a broader scale, the war on drugs can be won.

The first step is to understand why a person becomes trapped by drugs. In May 1969, when the international drug crisis was reaching its peak, author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard wrote:

“When a person is depressed or in pain and where he finds no physical relief from treatment, he will eventually discover for himself that drugs remove his symptoms.

“In almost all cases of psychosomatic pain, malaise or discomfort the person has sought some cure for the upset.

“When he at last finds that only drugs give him relief he will surrender to them and become dependent upon them often to the point of addiction.”

Growing up and living in this world can be very hard. Exercise, diet or simply taking a long walk to look at things until one can focus one’s attention outward and again feel relaxed can work wonders. Talking problems over with a friend or a minister or trusted family member can also help.

And for the person with a drug problem, there are also real solutions to addiction. Narconon, a drug rehabilitation program that utilizes the methods of L. Ron Hubbard, has a success rate of more than 75%. (www.narconon.org)

The best solution, however, is not to begin using drugs in the first place.