Giving a Damn

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Cocaine traffickers attempting to launder their profits are responsible for the disappearance of millions of acres of tropical forest across large swaths of Central America, according to a report.

The study, published on Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, found that drug trafficking was responsible for up to 30% of annual deforestation in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, turning biodiverse forest into agricultural land.

The study’s lead author, Dr Steven Sesnie from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said: “Most of the ‘narco-driven’ deforestation we identified happened in biodiverse moist forest areas, and around 30-60% of the annual loss happened within established protected areas, threatening conservation efforts to maintain forest carbon sinks, ecological services, and rural and indigenous livelihoods.”

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The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, constitutes more than 30 percent of the global demand for illegal drugs, according to my calculations.

Yes, there are addicts, but experts estimate that eight in 10 users — more than 20 million people in this country — take drugs recreationally. They come from all walks of life — artists, bankers, engineers, and high school, college and graduate students…That’s why Americans must recognize that every time they buy illegal drugs they reward the cartels. If you think one person’s consumption is too small to make a difference, consider that $100 — what a recreational cocaine user might spend on a single weekend — buys the cartels 500 rounds of ammunition; $500 buys a new AR-15 rifle; $700 covers the monthly salary of one of their gunmen.

Without the vast profits from the drug trade, cartels would be infinitely less powerful, and our governments could neutralize them.

If you use illegal drugs, even just occasionally, please reconsider. Lives are at stake. Go for legal vices if you must. Even if you never use illegal drugs, you probably know people who do. Tell them about the trail of blood that led to their night of partying. If they had seen it firsthand, as I have, they wouldn’t buy those drugs.

We can shatter the misconception that recreational drug use is a victimless crime. We must put an end to the hypocrisy that allows people to make purchases based on their concerns about the environment, workers’ rights or animals — but not about killing people in Mexico.

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We need more cliches' and quick fixes! We really do! True, don't you listen to the 'consensus peddlers'?

Yeh! Like a whole in the head! But who is going to make the tough call. I attended the Thinking Drinking 3 Conference in Brisbane in August 2009 and one of the many poignant statements made was 'All the easy things that can be done, have been done!"That means we've done all the things that really don't challenge an individuals core values and beliefs, but that's gunna be the next step... But hey, we, for the most part are pretty gutless and don't seem to want to make tough calls, maybe we really need to start doing just that?

Read on...

One in Four Teenage Girls Have STDs
By Deborah Huso

("Check out the full article by Deborah Huso featured on AOL Health." Click Here

No Brainer Comments:

Now this is scary stuff! Really scary! Why, some clueless entity may ask? Well, it's the life changing impact these disturbing realities bring…and it's the ladies who wear the brunt of it! These diseases have the very real potential to damage you for life, particularly young women's ability to get pregnant later on into adulthood! Some of these diseases are incurable! That's right… can't fix it, you can merely control the symptoms, but you will infect anyone you have unprotected sex with! So, basically you can never, ever have sex without at least using a condom….ever!

We want you to pay particular notice to the 'timing' of these events… '…infected soon after their 'first sexual encounter!' The statistics tell us that most young teenager girls fist sexual encounter is alcohol related, that's right, getting wasted at parties and being taken advantage of. In fact there is a new 'tag line' for such events and it's called 'regrettable sexual incidents'.

There is very recent data coming out of one municipality on the Melbourne fringe, a YSAS team (Youth Substance Abuse Services) told a public meeting that around 1/3 of the teenagers who were tested in their premises for STD's were shown to have an STD… the link is clear!

Now to the clueless adolescent whose 'bible' is 'cosmopolitan' magazine and their role model some try hard, sell out skank, and who has also bought the well spun lie that 'doing' alcohol or other drugs is harmless and all fun; and who may even think 'screwing' makes them 'grown up' - then warnings of potential stuff ups and future grief, don't register on the 'watch out' radar!

This is why YOU need to be looking out for the people you give a damn about! No, I'm not just talking about havin' a condom ready for the moment… reality is that when girls are hammered, they're randy, they aint thinking straight and whatever frail boundaries they may have, are easily breached by any predator male. In the heat the of the moment, the condom rarely materializes or if does, it's used poorly!

Hang on, why predator? Well let's face it, no caring human being who gives a damn about their friends would let them get into that state, let alone be abused – so let's call a spade, a spade, and stop trying to sanitise this crap behaviour with care-less political correctness!

Come on! Give a damn, stand up, if not for you, then for your friends! NO Brainer Team

Scotty's' Story!(name changed to protect the innocent)

I've been a youth and childcare worker in a multitude of settings for well over 25 years. In that time I have been involved in some wonderful, but sadly, mostly tragic scenarios. The following is one such story…

I recall just one of many stories in my journeys. I was working for the Dept of Community Welfare Services. I was employed as a youth and childcare worker on a casual basis whilst concurrently working as a Youth Pastor in a local church. The Department had asked me repeatedly over a 12 month period to work with them in a short-term accommodation units.

I had a regular gig in one such accommodation unit. Typically the clients housed in this unit came from unsafe or crisis situations and the house was meant to be a temporary respite before finding them more suitable arrangements. However, more often than not the house was their home for much of the time.

All our clients had varying degrees of behavioural issues/problems and anger, violence and substance abuse was a regular part of the activities of the kids on the house. With few exceptions, pretty much every young person in the house had a tale of woe… Scotty was one such kid.

Unlike many of the young males in the unit Scotty was a pretty amicable kid – you know everyone liked him, he was fun cheeky and good mannered for the most part. All the staff and most of the other kids really liked him too. He was a 'cool' looking kid with the wildest 'dreadies' I'd ever seen and a cheeky smile and disposition to match his look. For the most part Scotty was a well behaved kid and I often wondered what such a decent guy was doing in a place with mostly bad-attitude and angry young men an women? Well one Wednesday night I found out.

Scotty had been out during the day, as most clients were expected to be, looking for work or going to school—Scott did neither. This particular evening he came home and he was no-where near his buoyant, chirpy self, in fact he was not only surly, but 'dopey', disoriented and running at the nose. I knew he had been 'chroming' and tried to help him get something to eat and get him to bed… he was pretty wasted. I had even found empty hair spray and fly spray cans in the yard! The next day (he was feeling pretty crap) I asked what was going on and why he was chroming? He shrugged off my question with his usually cheeky deflection and said that there wasn't much wrong, he was just messin' about! I knew there was more to this than he was saying and time revealed just that.

One day I came on shift and expected to see the happy smiling Scott that we all knew, but this day it was not to be. He was angry, very angry. I tried to talk to him, but he was throwing things around and just stormed off. A couple of hours later he came back, and yep, you guessed it, he was trashed. He wasn't angry anymore, just staggering, lethargic and incoherent.

I soon found out some of the tragic history of this great kid.

Scotty came from a dysfunctional broken home, but worse, when he was only a little boy, he had been sexually abused by a family member. Even with some counseling that 'PAIN' never left him. Scott didn't want to take drugs, but how could he stop the horrible feelings of betrayal, abandonment, fear, depression and anger? Inhalants are easy to get and relatively inexpensive and they stopped the horrible 'emotional noises' in his head and heart, even if only for a very short while.

After some on-going work we managed to get Scott, almost completely free of using inhalants and that was a real win for Scott.

But then we heard the devastating news.

He had left our care some time back and was living independently and was beginning to get this life together with both school and work. He was doing OK. However, one weekend he was convinced by a couple of his 'wayward' mates to take a train trip, for no reason other than just get out of Melbourne and go north for some fun.

They stopped at a station in a small country town and were waiting for another train, when one of the gang said…'l'm bored let's get wasted!' They simply grabbed a aerosol can, and as Scotty had done most days earlier on he joined in.

This time Scott inhaled and died. Right there on the station platform, he fitted, and then died. The ambulance was called but could do nothing to save him.

What an incredible waste! What a shocking tragedy! After breaking the habit, and being clean for so long Scott fell victim to SUDDEN SNIFFING DEATH SYNDROME. It was never going to happen to him, after all he'd done it heaps of times before and besides, he'd been off it for ages.

I can still here the same echo I've heard from scores of kids ringing in my ears…It wont happen to me! It won't happen to me! It wont happen to me! I'm sure, it won't happen to me! By S.V.