I live in a small quaint town along the Missouri river.
Its the type of place where doors aren't locked at night, and that the police send the local hooligans home to their parents and are not forced to have shoot-outs with them before sending them to Jail.
In this quiet town one of my neighbors decided that the best way to survive in this economic downturn was to start up a couple of their own businesses. They decided that if they stayed small, and flew under the government's radar, they wouldn't need to worry about red-tape and governmental regulations that could hinder their small businesses.
Oh, their small businesses--
1) Running a day-care center.
2) Running a meth-lab.
I admit, I appreciate their entrepreneurial spirit, but I do believe that there are two areas that even the Libertarians might suggest some governmental oversight is useful--the taking care of young children, and the production of addictive medications using dangerous and routinely explosive chemicals. Further, the combination of the two businesses should not occur under the same roof.
I do not want my meth diluted with baby spittle.
I do not want my baby diluted with meth.
And when the police arrived, the care taker answered the door with a snorting straw still half up her nose, while 5 children slept nearby.
Again, this wasn't some crack-house in the hood. This was a nice small town neighborhood.
This 4 blocks away from my house.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
In the nice, quiet town we used to live in, our neighbors turned out to be meth dealers. My wife and the neighbor on the other side helped the police by taking down plate numbers of the many nice friends and family who stopped by each day. Then one night we got to watch a police raid on the house.
Posted by Stone_Wolf_ (Member # 8299) on :
As a registered member of the Libertarian party, I would like to say, no one likes their meth diluted with baby spittle.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Again, this wasn't some crack-house in the hood. This was a nice small town neighborhood.
This is to be expected, actually. Proportionally, meth is a bigger problem in small, rural communities than it is in, as you say "the hood".
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Mr. Port, that comment about the crack-house was not directed at the meth--it was directed at the brilliant and caring folks who had a house full of young children in their meth-lab.
Of course, the state is trying to make it more difficult to by the cold meds that they make meth from. I guess saying that you need a bunch because all the kids at your day care are sick could help you get around that problem....once, or twice maybe.
Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
While my area still deals with meth, the local college crowd has already brought the next fad to town. Apparently, some kids are starting to smoke, snort, and inject 'bath salts' and 'potpourri'. It shouldn't come as a surprise that these are actually being laced with other mind-altering chemicals.
There have been two relatively high-profile raids on convenience stores and shops that sell potpourri packages and their related paraphernalia.
The quaint, quiet country lifestyle of Kansas is simply too much for kids to bear.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Mr. Port, that comment about the crack-house was not directed at the meth--it was directed at the brilliant and caring folks who had a house full of young children in their meth-lab.
Huh? Do you expect drug-dealing scumbags in small communities to be more responsible than drug-dealing scumbags in "the hood"?
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Do I expect it? No.
Does it show up the same on TV? No. The drug-dealing scumbags are shown to be stupidly getting their kids mixed with their drugs only in urban settings.
Small town settings have the kids getting mixed up in the parents Moonshine biz, which is usually a great bonding moment for the family, and full of important positive life lessons for the children.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: Does it show up the same on TV? No.
Huh? Dan, you are way too smart a guy to think TV reflects reality. Or v.v.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
In my pop culture experience, while the big cities are more prone to shootings and violence, small towns are usually hives for supernatural activity with the added issue that the whole town is usually in on it, whether we're talking cannibalism, vampirism, ritual sacrifice, etc.
Posted by Dobbie (Member # 3881) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: While my area still deals with meth, the local college crowd has already brought the next fad to town. Apparently, some kids are starting to smoke, snort, and inject 'bath salts' and 'potpourri'. It shouldn't come as a surprise that these are actually being laced with other mind-altering chemicals.
There have been two relatively high-profile raids on convenience stores and shops that sell potpourri packages and their related paraphernalia.
The quaint, quiet country lifestyle of Kansas is simply too much for kids to bear.
It's not just the country. Bath salts have come to our major cities.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Does it show up the same on TV? No. The drug-dealing scumbags are shown to be stupidly getting their kids mixed with their drugs only in urban settings.
You can partially remedy this by checking out the fabulous TV show "Justified". Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
No surprises, Dobbie.
I don't normally pay attention to substance abuse. Over the past several months, though, I've had conversations with someone who is dealing with its impact. The amount I've learned from these casual conversations is amazing, yet scary. It simply confuses me to no end why people do this. I can read about it, hear about it, and even see it, but I doubt I'll ever completely understand.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
For Tstorm, reasons for substance abuse. Pain and lots of it, stress, 'follower mentality', experimenting, and level of intelligence.
My madre being a crack-head abandoning me and my siblings while my step-dad was being shot at in a foreign country isn't that great ;D.
She isn't the smartest crayon in the box, has back problems, and will follow strangers like a lost puppy... So being on pain-killers most her life, which barely cut the pain from her back, it was easy for some crackies to persuade her into crack to "relieve the pain" and not being sharp she was like "OKAY" next thing you know I have some weird as people over at my house.... Did I mention she was taking my siblings with her to do crack ;o, my sister's epileptic now, the med's without insurance cost over 100G a year .___. ..
What's even more fun, is in the middle of all of this, the police caught her, and in return for some spying they would ignore what she was doing, so this gave her an all access crack-pass. --------------------------------------------- Bath salts... wow... I would just ignore that, if kids wanna do drugs in screw themselves up, that's more space in the world for me. --------------------------------------------- Crack houses exist anywhere where people need money bad enough, your neighbors aren't very smart though, as I learned from drug dealers you are NOT supposed to be using your product, it's bad for productivity.
Posted by happymann (Member # 9559) on :
Talking of substance abuse, has anyone seen the small independent film "Happy Valley"? It talks about the huge prescription drug abuse problem in Utah Valley (nicknamed Happy Valley for the number of innocent (aka clueless) citizens). It's quite informative but I'm not certain where you'd get a copy outside of Utah.
Edit: Apparently you can get it on Amazon. Or rent it from Netflix.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I'm all for day care centers needing some sort of certification/oversight, but I wonder about the parents' role in evaluating the day care.
If the day care people were able to fool parents who did the amount of serious looking into the day care situation that they should be doing, I think they'd likely be able to fool a government overseer.
Of course, if the day care operators really are coming to the door with drug paraphernalia still up their nose, I'm thinking it's likely that parents didn't do their job in evaluating them.
Posted by happymann (Member # 9559) on :
Or the parents treat it like Wal-Mart. "I can drop off the kids and pick up my drugs at the same time!!"
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Talking of substance abuse, has anyone seen the small independent film "Happy Valley"? It talks about the huge prescription drug abuse problem in Utah Valley (nicknamed Happy Valley for the number of innocent (aka clueless) citizens). It's quite informative but I'm not certain where you'd get a copy outside of Utah.
I've not seen the film, but I am familiar with that problem in Utah.
I think that a big part of the reason for the problem is that there is such a large population that is unwilling to self-medicate with the traditional self-medication drugs (alcohol, marijuana, etc.).
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Interestingly, the Happy Valley I'm more familiar with would be the Happy Valley Racecourse, which could also be considered clueless and/or self-medication Posted by Tstorm (Member # 1871) on :
Rawrain, my post wasn't a request for more information, actually. It's just a statement of fact. Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: While my area still deals with meth, the local college crowd has already brought the next fad to town. Apparently, some kids are starting to smoke, snort, and inject 'bath salts' and 'potpourri'. It shouldn't come as a surprise that these are actually being laced with other mind-altering chemicals.
There have been two relatively high-profile raids on convenience stores and shops that sell potpourri packages and their related paraphernalia.
The quaint, quiet country lifestyle of Kansas is simply too much for kids to bear.
I work at The Centers, a psych center and Detox center, on the Crisis Stabilization Unit. We had to look up this new trend because in a period of 2 days we had 4 people admitted for doing this, and we had no experience with it. It isn't just happening in YOUR neighborhood, btw...
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