In the scene called "The Meeting of the Five Families" in the movie "The Godfather," Marlon Brando's character Don Vito Corleone explains to the other mafia bosses why he is against the proposal to go into the illegal drug business.
"When, when did I ever refuse an accommodation?" the don says. "When did I ever refuse, except one time? And why? Because I believe this drug business is gonna destroy us in the years to come."
Sometime in the middle of the scene, we see Giuseppe Zaluchi, one of the five mafia bosses, stand up and exclaim how he has struggled to keep his caporegimes and underlings from going into the drug business but that they could not resist the tenfold profits from the drugs trade.
"The Godfather" is one of my all-time favorite movies. Although it probably does not have the most realistic portrayal of the mafia, it did underscore a reality that the immense profits from drugs is simply too tempting for the mob to pass up. Had Don Corleone insisted on keeping his organization away from the drug business, his own capos and associates would have turned against him and eliminated him. His partners and associates can't say he didn't warn them - that the drug business is going to destroy them in the years to come.
Illegal drugs, especially the methamphetamine kind locally known as shabu, prey on our basic human weakness: for the peddlers, the allure of easy money, and for the users, the need for instant pleasure. You need not be a person lacking in self-control or a person with a dysfunctional background in order to be lured into drug addiction. I've seen educated workers, professionals, those with decent family backgrounds fall into this death trap. In most cases, you need only to be with the wrong peers at the wrong time.
I've been meaning to write about the scourge of illegal drugs. In these "days of the dead" (October 31-November 2), now is my chance. No, this has nothing to do with the current administration's bloody war against drugs. My reason is more personal.
I lost a cousin to shabu addiction. I almost lost a good friend to the same drug. His tooth had already shown signs of decay, and his promising post-college life was similarly going toward the same fate, when he finally decided to leave the country and migrate to the United States. Then there's the doting father of five beautiful and wonderful kids who almost lost his job at a BPO company after testing positive of shabu during a surprise company drug test. I've also heard personal stories of brothers or sisters in the profession who are into meth too.
According to Narconon.org, methamphetamine (meth) is a powerfully addictive stimulant that drastically alters the central nervous system. The drug is popular because it is relatively easy to produce and is cheaper compared to other drugs like cocaine and heroin. Ingestion of the drug results in the release of very high levels of dopamine in the brain. All this dopamine makes the user feel an extra sense of pleasure that can last all day.
But the long-term effects can cause irreversible damage to blood vessels throughout the body, including the heart and brain. Scientists don't know yet if the damage to the brain is permanent or not. Studies have shown that even three years after meth addicts quit, their dopamine neurons were still damaged.
Thus, I can compare meth addicts to "walkers" or the zombies in the popular Fox series "The Walking Dead." Their brains are too fried up to think like normal humans. But unlike the zombies in the TV series, there is still hope for meth users to recover their life. But that hope for recovery is very slim.
My appeal to people, especially the youth: Never fall into the death trap of meth use. Please, please run away from friends who offer the drug to you.