Kids, beware of gray-haired men
What images come to mind when you think of our senior citizens wise, gray haired, generous to a fault, ready to lend a hand and strong.
In Kings County it appears you can add a less flattering image that of a gray haired man busy in his workshop, measuring and weighing marijuana on the latest high tech digital scale, then carefully packing it in tiny snack baggies. Or maybe he's meticulously counting out the pills OxyContin, Dilaudid or even Viagara for the men who can't get it from their doctors or are too embarrassed to ask. Perhaps he could be found carefully mixing the cocaine with baking powder to increase his profits, separating it into piles and weighing it on the scales before bagging it, or tearing tin foil in little pieces to wrap the hashish.
Three drug busts, in Apohaqui, Bloomfield and Hammondvale, have resulted in arrests of older men recently.
These men, ranging in age from 61 to 73, are implicated for various offenses that involve the possession and/or trafficking of marijuana, hashish, cocaine, ecstasy and OxyContin. While only one of the cases has worked its way through the courts so far, this odd streak of arrests causes one to ponder what the heck is going on with our senior citizens.
Is it a lack of money, no pension plan, bad spending habits, no marketable skills, addiction, greed, laziness, or a lack of conscience that would prompt an elderly man to decide that poisoning the minds and bodies of our young people is an acceptable means of making a living.
Perhaps it's easy to sell drugs once you get past all the messy moral issues, but the facts remain drugs are illegal, addictive, destructive and mind-numbing, not to mention fatal on occasion.
It's no accident that RCMP Cst. Norm Adams and Portage Admissions Co-ordinator Tambrie Hicks were at Sussex Regional High School a couple of weeks ago speaking on the widespread abuse of drugs among our children. This town obviously has a drug problem and, unbelievably, a certain sector of our senior population is very actively contributing to it.
There are those who will say, ‘if I don't sell it, someone else will, so why not?' What an immature and self-serving justification for breaking the law and destroying the community's trust in you. Why not well, let's see: you would have the integrity of being a law-abiding citizen, the respect of your family and community, the satisfaction of knowing you were not contributing to the downfall of our children, and of course, there would not be police breaking down your door and putting you in cuffs. You would not have the indignity of standing before a judge, the shame of sitting in a jail cell, nor the frustration of trying to wash the fingerprint ink off your dirty hands. You would be blameless.
Our community and our society look upon our senior citizens as role models, people to whom respect is due, members of our community who deserve our admiration.
Those who choose to exchange that for the title of drug dealer deserve nothing but our disgust. Frankly, we expect more of you. It's time to act your age.
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
