Family Disease of Addiction Unleashed by State Legalization
When a state legalizes drugs, it changes the culture dramatically and does incredible damage to the family system. Take the case of Ralph who believes he lost three nephews because of marijuana, and has completely lost touch with his sister, perhaps because of marijuana abuse by both her husband and daughter.
Ralph is 75 years old and moved out of the state of California once medical marijuana became legal. He witnessed crime skyrocketing, and pervasive drug use that he didn’t want his wife and children exposed to. “I didn’t want to live in a prison with bars on my windows.” He describes whole houses being robbed when people were away. He saw motorcycle gang members doing drug pickups in his residential neighborhood and noticed people became afraid to walk outdoors in the once safe community.
The Curse of Marijuana on the Family System
The stories he tells of his nephews are chilling. His first brother Steven’s 15 year old son Tom was murdered, along with his 15 year old cousin Sarah in cold blood by a Mexican-American Vietnam Veteran. The two children were out bicycle riding in an orchard. The stranger killed them and stole their bicycles. He was a psychotic killer and later found to be responsible for the murders of at least 5 children. News reports describe him as a brutal rapist who had anger issues. Ralph is convinced he was a marijuana user which caused his mental health problems.
Steven’s other son, Samuel, started smoking marijuana in grade school and kept it up all through his teen years. His habit caught up with him when he lost a job as a welder after failing a drug test. Unemployed, he lost his home and his boat. Samuel drank himself to death in his early 40’s.
Employers won’t hire a marijuana user, because insurance companies won’t cover them – the risk is too great of an on the job accident. One of Ralph’s sons works for a large company in California as a manager and has a hard time finding prospective employees because few can pass the drug test.
His other brother, Craig had a son, Frank, who was 20 years old when his wife got him involved in marijuana. He began doing crimes, Ralph thinks, because of the influence of the drug. Frank involved his children in his crimes, hoisting his children through the windows of homes so they could open the door and he could break in to steal to support his drug habit. He even robbed a bank. He was put in prison and became a hardened criminal. Every time he was released from prison, he would do a crime because he wanted to go back. Frank called prison, “the only home I got.” Finally, he was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He died there at age 42.
Tragically, Frank’s son was also into drugs, starting with marijuana and ended up doing both cocaine and heroin. Ralph says his relatives told him the drugs “fried his brain.” Tired of living the way he was living, Frank’s son died ‘playing chicken’ with a diesel truck. He hit the truck head on going 60 miles per hour. Ralph believes he intended to commit suicide and that he was probably under the influence of the drug at the time.
As to Ralph’s sister, she married a heavy pot smoker. Their daughter is a heavy marijuana user. His sister has moved out of California and refuses to talk to her family. “She is just not herself anymore,” explains Ralph.
Thankfully, Ralph’s children were spared the fate of their cousins, perhaps because Ralph moved out of California to protect them from the drug culture. Sadly, both of his brothers lost their only children to early death. Ralph lays the blame on the permissive drug culture in California.
Note: The names of the persons in this story were changed to protect their identities.
