Minority Report

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There’s been a lot of sympathy for the drug carriers executed recently in China. But I have more pity for the final victims of the drug trade, like those in this picture.

This is just a little party for the guys at the drug rehab center- or what passes for a party there. Not really a very cheerful occasion. But there is some reason for them to celebrate — They’re not in jail, or dead.

These boys are all victims of shabu; addicts, and lucky to be alive. For those that don’t know, shabu is a highly concentrated form of methamphetamine- a drug that acts as a violent stimulant to the nervous system. It’s illegal. And it’s not cheap.

It is taken in different ways; sometimes it is injected directly into the bloodstream. In this country it is usually heated on a piece of foil, vaporized, and then inhaled.

The result is an intense rush of pleasure and power, a feeling that you are master of all and everything you see. This lasts for a few hours, and then fades; you feel tired, irritable, unhappy. You need more. So you do it again. And again.

This goes on. Soon there’s no more money; no one you can borrow from, nothing left to pawn. You feel hot, dirty, angry. You need more. So you steal. From anyone, from your closest friends and family.

It becomes a pattern, it becomes your life. And slowly you begin to degenerate. You lose weight. Your teeth go bad. You are always confused, paranoid. In the end, final brain damage sets in.

These boys are lucky. Someone close saw what was happening to them, and sent them to a rehab center -either by persuasion or by force- to save what was left of their lives. Even then, many of them will return to shabu after their release.

Why not? Most of them have lives that are empty now, if not before. Most of them have no money of their own, and lack the discipline to acquire it- or they would not have been addicts to begin with. And getting high gives them at least the illusion of power and control.

So let them enjoy their little party. There’s nothing much ahead for them, and little where they came from left to show- where strangers will have closed the many doors, that many friends had opened long ago.

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