We see it everyday in the news – break and enter, armed robbery, stabbings, shootings and every other city crime we are accustomed to seeing on the news shows of bigger cities. Well, no more do we have to travel abroad to see this, it is now right here on our doorstep. Of even more concern is that it is made right here in Newfoundland. It’s not out of town gangs moving in. Nor is it ‘city slickers’ coming to Newfoundland to run amok. Its Newfoundlanders born and bred. We would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t been touched by it and very few conversations about modern day Newfoundland can be had without a reference to the increase in these various forms of crimes.

So what’s happening to our peaceful province? First and foremost, we are all very aware of one of its causations – and that’s drugs. Don’t confuse it, despite the frequent propaganda of the 80’s still bleeding into the minds of the uninformed, it’s not pot. The potheads aren’t running into your home unless they have mistaken it for their parents house. However, the people on Percocet, Oxycontin and Cocaine and a host of harder, often prescription, drugs are. The percentage of the Newfoundland population harbouring a vicious drug addiction is rising everyday and with that comes their ever increasing need for money and their desperation to get it. With habits often running into the hundreds of dollars a day range it can come as no surprise that they have to rob, steal and often sell drugs to satisfy this expense. While they do whatever it takes to fill their coffers and stop the often deadly sickness of withdrawal we, the general public of Newfoundland, take ever increasing safety measures to try and curb the exponential growth of our fear for our safety and well being. We install security systems, we lock our doors tight and we eye the person on the street with an ever increasing glare of paranoia and distrust. We have fortified ourselves in an effort to keep those “horrible drug addicts and scum” from invading our lives and the whole time hoped that “they get what they deserve”.

However, lets step back for a moment. Who are these human beings that we as Newfoundlanders are so repulsed by and genuinely afraid of? They are OUR children. Our sons, our daughters, our brothers and sisters. In actual fact, in 2015 they have also become our mothers and fathers. They are Newfoundlanders who at one time or another laughed and played in the cool salt water breeze just like we did. Having fallen victim to a set of bad decisions they are now trapped in an endless cycle of guilt, shame and addiction. They hurt, even when high and hiding behind a tipsy smile, in a way us non addicts can’t understand. They are not only physically destroyed but also mentally destroyed. These are OUR kids. It is only in a rare incidence that these people are inherently cruel or “bad”. The average person threatening your life or property has the same moral compass as us – it has just become broken from a series of events that while they started the first domino they did not build the track. The place they have ended up acts only as a restart button for the place that it began – with the use of drugs. They are still OUR children.

A common conversation amongst the Modern Newfoundlander is about how the sense of community is slowly disintegrating. The refrain of how it isn’t safe to leave your doors unlocked anymore or help a stranger is common component of any of these exchanges and for all intents and purposes this is true. But what if this increased separation of the community isn’t caused by the drug addicts but part of the cause? Is it possible that the disintegration of the community, due to a wide set of socioeconomic reasons, has actually left the children to fend for themselves in a world void of a collective identity and a collective responsibility? We as Newfoundlanders understand the truth to the saying, “It takes a whole village to raise a child” as many of us were indeed raised this way. So then is it hard to believe that as this village collapses the drug addicted children are the product of it? Maybe it is more accurate to say that while its not the cause of the disillusioned youth it is certainly an influence to those susceptible to the woes of drug use. When a child feels like they are part of a community and share a common identity with those around them it has several effects. It not only creates an identity that will fill a gap in their self image that often now is filled with drugs but it also adds upon them a responsibility to that collective to not use drugs to begin with. The shame and guilt of being outside the accepted behaviour of your collective identity needs to start before the drug use as a deterrent because once the addiction begins it is only fuel to the Percocet fire. As we continually isolate from our neighbours, and the community, our security is not increasing – its decreasing.

There is one last point to be said about the lack of community and its effects on drug use. While we try and build walls to keep the drug addicted out and demonize them in our publications and conversations we are actually further supporting their ability to disconnect from the responsibility they have to the Newfoundland community. There has been a rising wave, evident on social media, of an attitude of “us against them” from both sides of the argument. The general public with their continued inhumane generalization of drug addicts and the drug addicts themselves with their attempts at wearing a mask of pride about their behavior. The interesting thing about this stand-off is that on both sides it is a defense mechanism. For the general public to cope with their fear of being violated they attempt to overcompensate by spewing hatred towards these drug addicts and minimize the fact that they are human beings that are of us. For the drug addicts they have overcompensated for the guilt and shame they feel about themselves by putting on affront of pride. They are forming a new community to provide them a positive self image – that community is one of reckless disregard for their fellow man. It’s much more difficult for the average human being, drug addicted or not, to disrespect or steal from their parents, their children or their community. As difficult as it is for a member of the general public to demonize their child it is equally as difficult for a child of the community to steal from that community. So in an ill attempt to cope, both sides minimize the interrelatedness of the other lives in the argument.

While a policy of full tolerance may be impossible and unrealistic the idea that OUR kids should be thrown out with the trash is equally as ridiculous. We need to do our best to open our doors back up, to tear down the walls. They are not protecting us. They are worsening our problem. Jail may be the only option for some and when a crime is committed a price has to be paid. However, lets not forget that these are OUR kids and if we don’t give them a community and self image to be proud of they will find their own. They will find an idea of community that makes sense to their adolescent, unguided minds. Whether it comes from TV, music or from the members of the province with the most time to “hang out” is largely only a matter of circumstance. However, it will come and it will propagate to fill the voids we have left in them. Lets not forget the same kid we give nothing to will give nothing back. Lets not forget we are Newfoundland and so are they. If their self image bothers us it may be time to look in the mirror at our own. These are OUR kids after all.

#IAMNEWFOUNDLAND

#IAMNEWFOUNDLAND: Defining The Self Image of the Modern Newfoundlander is a weekly blog, with a new article every Wednesday, that focuses on the modern Newfoundland experience and how we interpret it into the greater tapestry of our Self Image as a people and a culture. Visit our blog on our website (www.iamnewfoundland.com), Facebook or Twitter (@IAmNewfoundland)

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