SURE, THERE'S A PROBLEM

I've spent the best (or worst) part of the last week exploring the topic of
drug use in the City of Dryden and found it enlightening, even though I've
watched other communities acknowledge their blemishes from time to time.

What I'll always find perplexing is how few people actually are willing to
talk about this kind of thing.

Oh, they'll talk over a cup of coffee in hushed voices, or while they're
busy knocking someone they don't think a whole lot of - but if you start a
factual discussion on the matter, they clam up faster than some of the
participants in the sponsorship scandal.

It's like the old ladies in a particularly incestuous section of the
Maritimes, who would casually offer up all the nasty tidbits on which
families were a "bit inbred," but choke on their teeth when you asked them
why they thought incest was so prevalent in their area.

"We don't have a problem with that here. It's just a few families that get
into that sort of thing - that's all."

The entire community was comprised of only "a few families"...

Other places have had weeks of front page news stories describing racial
tension and riots at local high schools. Eventually a 15-year-old kid kills
a classmate at a party - and admits it was just because of the colour of
his skin.

Within 24 hours, both the mayor and the high school principal had been on
the evening news - both denying that their community had a problem with racism.

Hate to break it to you folks, but violence, riots and even one death does
constitute a problem.

Technology has led to the globalization of the planet. We can travel to
anywhere in the world in roughly a day's time - and we can get our hands on
anything from a pizza to crack cocaine without leaving the comfort of our
own living rooms.

Small communities like Dryden are no longer a four or five-day horse and
buggy ride from the big city.

In fact, the only thing we'd have to wait that long for to arrive from a
larger centre would be a part for our car!

Communities of all sizes around the world are facing the same problems at
approximately the same time.

The only difference is that the ones who admit they have problems get
around to dealing with them much faster than those that don't.