DRUG PROBLEM CONCERNS

I'm writing this because of a conversation I had with some friends
recently. The gist of the conversation was that we couldn't believe the
extent of the drug problem in this community and how little some people
think of this problem.

The fact is there is a real problem in Kahnawake when it comes to drugs. As
recently as ten years ago the biggest thing a high school student had to
worry about was peer pressure to smoke marijuana. Now high school students
have to worry about being pressured into snorting cocaine or smoking crack.

No, I'm not being an alarmist or blowing the situation out of proportion.
The fact is that there are a large number of people in Kahnawake doing
cocaine and they are getting younger and younger. One Kahnawake parent
recently told me that one of her daughters is in rehab because she was
always out with other Kahnawake teens either smoking crack or doing cocaine.

How could something like this happen? A few short years ago marijuana used
to be the drug of choice for many Kahnawake teens. For many in Kahnawake
smoking marijuana is bad enough, but wouldn't it be nice if that's the only
drug-related thing we had to worry about? Now there are teens doing hard
drugs such as cocaine and crack.

When I was in high school the few people that smoked weed would usually say
when asked, "Well, at least I'd never do coke." Now there are numerous
teens and adults doing cocaine in its various forms who say, "Well, I'd
never try heroin."

I think that everyone in the community needs to wake up. The Mohawk Council
of Kahnawake has declared that Kahnawake has a zero tolerance policy with
regards to illegal drugs, but that has done nothing to curb the drug
problem in the community. Is this an actual policy or is it just lip
service to those community members who feel strongly about the drug issue?

Parents need to talk to their children about the dangers of using drugs.
Because that's exactly what it is: dangerous. People think that they can
start doing drugs and stop whenever they want to, but it's not that simple.
Once you're addicted to cocaine, your body actually needs the drug in order
to function. Cocaine interferes with the natural recycling process of the
chemical dopamine.

The brain produces dopamine during pleasurable activities. Normally,
dopamine is recycled back to the neuron which transmitted it. But when
cocaine is present this process is blocked and there is a buildup of
dopamine in the synapse which contributes to the pleasurable effects of
cocaine. After continued use, a tolerance builds and more cocaine is needed
to achieve the desired effects.

Once you're addicted it's not as easy as just stopping taking the drug to
overcome the addiction. Even years after not taking the drug, a former
addict can begin having cravings and start using again as if he or she had
never stopped.

The fact is, cocaine ruins lives. Trying the drug even once is enough to
create an addiction. Cocaine is even more dangerous when mixed with
alcohol. When the two substances are mixed, the body converts them into
cocaethyiene. This chemical has a longer duration of action in the brain
and is more toxic than either cocaine or alcohol alone. The mixture of
alcohol and cocaine is also the most common two-drug combination that
results in drug-related deaths.

Does that sound like it's not serious? The mixture of cocaine and alcohol
is enough to kill you. That sounds pretty serious to me. It's high time
that the community as a whole steps up and does something about the drug
problem. It's not just the responsibility of the Peacekeepers, or the MCK,
or Kahnawake Shakotiia'takehnhas Community Services. It's up to us all to
put an end to the drug problem, because one way or another it affects us all.