{"id":6242,"date":"2011-02-09T21:27:38","date_gmt":"2011-02-09T20:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/?p=6242"},"modified":"2011-02-09T21:29:18","modified_gmt":"2011-02-09T20:29:18","slug":"30-days-of-truth-day-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/6242","title":{"rendered":"30 Days of Truth: Day 20"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Day20\"<\/a>
\nThis one is pretty simple, I think both are fine if used responsibly.\u00a0 By drugs I mean weed, not heroin or cocaine or any of the stronger drugs.\u00a0 If I had to choose the lesser of the two evils it would definitely be weed.<\/p>\n

I think the marijuana issue is blown way out of proportion and that the leaders in North America could learn something from how the Netherlands deals with it.\u00a0 The fact that there are people all over North America and other countries around the world in prison<\/em> for using weed, well, it\u2019s preposterous!\u00a0 The \u2018gateway drug\u2019 thing is bullshit and people need to chill the hell out.\u00a0 That\u2019s my opinion.<\/p>\n

There are a lot more deaths, accidents and abuses that take place when people misuse alcohol than when people smoke weed.\u00a0 Your health suffers a lot more with alcohol and I don\u2019t recall ever hearing of someone being poisoned by smoking weed or having to have their stomach pumped.<\/p>\n

A lot may think that I\u2019ve just been brainwashed from living here, but I prefer to think of it as being enlightened.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll never forget the first time I went to France with my husband and his brother to visit the family. We were all sitting in the living room watching a movie when my brother in law pulled out a joint and lit up.\u00a0 I sat with a shocked look on my face looking from one family member to the next, waiting for someone react.\u00a0 All I got was a shrug and a smile from my husband\u2026 that\u2019s when I realized how little people care about it here.\u00a0 He smoked his joint, relaxed and we all had a good evening.\u00a0 No biggie. No blowouts\u2026 no over reactions.<\/p>\n

As for alcohol, it\u2019s tricky because I think it\u2019s more difficult for people to moderate themselves in a lot of situations.\u00a0 It\u2019s also extremely dangerous for the younger people in countries like Canada and the US where it\u2019s been made a forbidden fruit for teenagers.<\/p>\n

I have seen teenagers here in the Netherlands at 16 and 17 years old, sitting in a pub having a beer and chatting.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen teenagers having a drink of wine with their families and I\u2019ve seen them buying beer at the movie theaters and supermarkets.\u00a0 It\u2019s not forbidden to them, there is no reason for them to sneak around and they learn to be responsible about it at a younger age.<\/p>\n

Now, one might think that our streets are full of drunken teenagers but that\u2019s not the case at all.<\/p>\n

I DID however, see many drunken teenagers in the streets in Canada.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because they had nowhere else to go!<\/p>\n

I WAS a drunken teenager roaming the streets in Canada, so I should know.<\/p>\n

You know were I drank with my friends as a teenager?\u00a0 Behind the mall, in clearings in the woods, in parks or in friend\u2019s houses when their parents were out for the evening.\u00a0 All of these scenarios lead to us just roaming the streets trying to have a good time. We weren\u2019t allowed into bars, our parents wouldn\u2019t dream<\/em> of letting us drink under their noses and that made it forbidden, and we were allll<\/strong> over it.\u00a0 We were kids and when you are a kid and are told you aren\u2019t allowed to have something people older than you are having, you\u2019ll find a way.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure some of the parents of friends from high school are reading this and thinking they were right about me, that I really was <\/em>a wild teenager who was a bad influence on their kid.\u00a0 I think the time has come for you all to know the truth\u2026<\/p>\n

Your kid was doing the SAME damn thing\u2026 we ALL were.<\/p>\n

When I think of some of the dangerous situations we could have gotten ourselves into, and at sometimes DID get ourselves into, it\u2019s a wonder I made it to see my 20\u2019s.\u00a0 Seriously\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for people to take a long hard look at the world and what they are sending their children out into.\u00a0 If I am ever lucky enough to have children, I will be making sure that the topics of drugs and alcohol are addressed in an open and realistic<\/em><\/strong> manner.\u00a0 I don\u2019t ever want to be the parent that leaves my child in a dangerous situation because they are too afraid to call me.<\/p>\n

I think the only thing that saved me was<\/em> my parents.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t stupid and while they didn\u2019t know exactly what was going on, and certainly never made out like it was OK for me to drink before I was legally allowed, they were aware of the world they were living in. They made sure that I knew that they were aware that teenagers are drinking, that I\u2019d be going to parties and that I could ALWAYS call them if I found myself in a difficult situation.\u00a0 If someone was in trouble, if someone was drinking and driving, no matter what, I could trust them and call them if I needed them\u2026 and I did.\u00a0 I called them to pick me up when a friend stubbornly refused to hand over their keys and wanted to drive me home, I called them to pick us up when my friend had far far too much to drink and was scary <\/em>sick, and I called them plenty of other times when I needed them.\u00a0 They were always<\/em> there, without fail.\u00a0 Sure, I got a lecture or two and maybe even shouted at a few times, but they were THERE.<\/p>\n

So, I guess to sum it up, I think that drugs and alcohol can be scary if misused and that it\u2019s the responsibility of our society and the parents to be realistic and open with their teenagers about it, rather than burying their heads in the sand and send their children out into the world uninformed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This one is pretty simple, I think both are fine if used responsibly.\u00a0 By drugs I mean weed, not heroin or cocaine or any of the stronger drugs.\u00a0 If I had to choose the lesser of the two evils it would definitely be weed. I think the marijuana issue is blown way out of proportion …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[553,65,876,244],"class_list":["post-6242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-randoms","tag-30-days-of-truth","tag-family","tag-memory-lane","tag-parents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6242"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6245,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6242\/revisions\/6245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}