It's never anything but sad when a young person dies in a drug-or alcohol-related incident. In fact, it's sad when anyone dies that way, young and old alike. But then, people have been doing drugs and getting wasted on alcohol for a long time, despite the many very real known dangers and risks. Alcohol addiction made a hell of my mother's last 20 years, and a horrific, alcohol-related car crash took the lives of four of my best college friends in 1959, one of whom was the captain of the basketball team and president of his senior class. [continues 391 words]
Is the news getting crazier all the time or has old age finally ossified what little is left of my brain? In last Friday's Globe, I read that an anti-drug unit of the Colombian National Police had found a half-completed submarine during a routine raid on a warehouse 18 miles west of Bogota. According to police officials, the 100-foot, double-hulled sub, once completed, could travel at a depth of 100 meters while carrying more than 200 tons of cocaine. The most likely destination for such a payload? The United States, of course, easily the world's No. 1 consumer for every kind of mind-or mood-altering drug known to man. [continues 770 words]
