No point in talking about my son any more. Why depress everyone, including myself? Better to boast of solutions to the tedious society vs the individual vs resource distribution conundrum. In relation to drug policy at least.
Again I find my suggestions are viable, and being implemented in the enlightened backwoods of Scandinavia. On the first ABC TV Foreign Correspondent of the new season (which has surely picked up and become more thought provoking since Jennifer Byrne left) one of the stories was about an island in Norway which is an eco-jail. The crims grow food, raise beasts, have private rooms, and the whole project is aiming to become carbon neutral.
For years I have advocated an isolated community, preferably in the middle of the Nullabor, where escape is futile, for drug offenders. There they would learn to be self-sufficient, manage their lives, cooperate with others, and hopefully learn some skills. The cold waters around the Norwegian island serve the same function of isolation as the desert sands, with the added element of sustainability. That completes the circle for me. The Director of the prison, for it is a prison, believes that a focus on environmental sustainability is good in itself, but also has deep messages for the inmates. Mind you, these inmates looked more like Trailer Park Boys than OZ, for those who have been lucky enough to see the former. OZ is a bit too dark for me, TPB is at least funny.
What could impress the lawbreakers more than the stark obligation of growing and then dishing up their own dinners? And isn’t that the problem we now all face? We can no longer escapt from the reality of balancing how we live and what we consume with ever-amplifying feedback about the inherent limits of our choices.
Today’s Canberra Times warns severely that ‘Worse is to come’ unless we cut back on our spending to reduce inflation. Hold on, isn’t this the same Received Wisdom that gleefully counts the retail receipts for stupid spending over Christmas? Yet on page two there is an article about the growing pile of plastic rubbish in the north Pacific gyre, now twice the size of the United States. When will we connect the dots?
In any case, surely a benign, first world country like Norway (and belatedly Australia) surely can reach out to develop sensitive and holistic approaches to law breakers. I have no problems with drug taking. But I have a big problem with people who go beyond recreation and move into destruction of society. Keep your habits to yourself is my mantra, and indeed this is what I try to practice.
As for my son, well off we go today for his rehab at the coast. He is still too arrogant for a real rehab, so it will be in my shed with the composting toilet, the sound of the sea in the distance. For years I have been trying to get him there, even for a few days, for a break from his sad lifestyle and a good prolonged feed. Finally he is coming, but not without a call this morning trying to back out. But we are going, his methodone is arranged for the local chemist, and with heart in throat, we’re off.
Perhaps he will even respond to my holistic setting in positive ways, as the homeopathic ocean cleanses his sins. Hope costs nothing. Keeping him in beer will set me back a bit.