Catching up on my daily local news by reading the Useless Leader online, I was reading this article and came across this phrase: “Heroin’s purity in New England — well above the national average,” and oddly, felt a sense of pride. How ridiculous. I mean, sure, a sense of pride in having, say, maple syrup’s purity in New England is well above the national average is normal. But a tingle of pride in having some of the better heroin in the United States? I think I spent too much time working on that injection drug users study, that’s what. But they, if you’re going to do something, dammit, be good at it.

The article itself is fairly useless except to drum up fear of drug users and dealers. That’s crap, because if you’re going to fear them, you already do. Criminal activity is up? No shit! I think more folks should work and talk directly with addicts and see them as they are: human beings. Many of them will acknowledge that they’ve made a mistake or they continue to make mistakes, but that the drug controls their lives. The article talks about addicts resorting to crime to pay for their drug habit, but doesn’t go into how if it’s heroin, the crime generally comes when a person is dopesick–they’ve got the nasty withdrawal symptoms and just want to make them better. That’s also the time when an addict will most likely use a dirty needle, because the desperation is so high in that moment. Sick is the key word. Dopesick isn’t just psychological symptoms, it’s very, very physical.

Drugs are bad, Mr. Hat, mmmkay.

On another pride note…Levesque’s sister Stacy is one of the candidates (you must be 18 to view the pics) for radio station WAAF’s Miss Mantown Calendar 2007. And for some reason, I am proud of my best friend’s younger sister.

I don’t know why.