Parents and Children against Drugs
My article today aims to collaborate in the fight against crack, a terrible drug that is lamentably spreading across the country. According to recent research released by the Brazilian National Confederation of Municipalities (CNM), crack consumption has penetrated all social classes.
Pari passu with public policies and medical care for users in their struggle against chemical dependence, one cannot ignore due valorization of families—the attention of parents and legal guardians over their children’s companies and the indispensable presence of Ecumenical Spirituality in the dialogue between parents and children. May this Flag Day (celebrated in Brazil on 11/19 and in the USA on 06/14) also serve to remind all of us, society as a whole, of our role in protecting youth from drugs.
In 1980, I presented on the Good Will Super Communications Network "A Letter From a Son to His Father," published in O Imparcial, from Monte Alto, São Paulo. In the letter, a 19-year-old user of narcotics says goodbye to his father. Given the emotion of the listeners, I had the text printed in different languages.
It is indispensable that parents become aware. During our parades and pamphlet distribution, at conferences, on radio, and TV, we advise parents to pay greater attention to the daily lives of their children, their children’s friendships, doubts, and the places they usually go to. This is a true story, which took place in a hospital in São Paulo:
Drugs: "A Letter From a Son to His Father"
"I think that in this world nobody has tried to describe his own cemetery. I don’t know how my father is going to take this, but I need all my strength while there is still time. I’m sorry, my father, I think this is the last conversation I will have with you, I’m really very sorry . . . You know, dad, it is time for you to know the truth you never suspected. I’ll be brief and clear, quite objective.
"Drugs have killed me. I met my murderer at the age of 15. It’s horrible, isn’t it, dad? Do you know how I met such a misfortune? Through an elegantly dressed citizen really very elegant and smooth-talking, who introduced me to my future murderer: drugs.
"I tried to refuse, I really did, but the citizen shook my pride, saying I wasn’t a man. I don’t have to say anything else, do I, dad? I entered the world of drugs.
"At first it was dreamland, then torture, darkness, I couldn’t do anything without drugs. Then came the lack of air, fear, hallucinations, and soon afterwards the euphoria of the needle again, I felt I was better than other people and drugs, my inseparable friend, kept smiling and smiling.
"You know, dad, when one begins, one finds everything ridiculous and very funny. I even found GOD ridiculous. Today in my hospital bed, I recognize that GOD is more important than anything in the world. And that without His help I wouldn’t be writing this letter. Dad, I’m only 19, and I know I don’t have the slightest chance of living. It is too late for me, but I have one last request to make you, my father: show this letter to all young people you know. Tell them that at the door of every school, of every course, any place, there is always an elegantly-dressed and smooth-talking man who will show them the murderous and destructive future of their lives and lead them to madness and death, like he did to me. Please do this, dad, before it is too late for them.
"Forgive me, dad . . . I have already suffered too much. Forgive me also for making you suffer for my madness.
"Farewell, my father."
Some time after writing this letter, the young man died.
Take good care of the youth
This is why we fraternally warn: Let us take good care of our young people, as done by the Legion of Good Will, since none of us is interested to have, in future, a homeland of drugged, drunken and frustrated people. We really wish to have a generation, a civilization of honoured, good-aimed and Peace, Truth, and Justice, loving men, women, youth, and children. This is what the Legion of Good Will tirelessly works for. Youth is the future. But not a distant future—it is the future in the present: Let us trust in them.
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