Money and Opportunity Squandered

Authorities seized over $200 million in a single raid from a Mexican meth ring in 2007. I was sent this picture of the money stacked up, it weighed over two tons, but decided not to write up a post because of the age of the story. That’s a lot of money though and I’ve had a hard time shaking the image out of my thoughts. It is easy to focus scrutiny on the immediate and obvious damage of drug and alcohol abuse; overdose, crime, neglect/abuse, infidelity and violence, but rare is the mention of what these things have cancelled out.

What if the wife wasn’t a meth widow? What if the son wasn’t abused and grew up in a healthy environment? It’s downright depressing to think about what good could have come out of this $200 million dollars if it hadn’t been squandered on drugs.

Click “Read more” to continue…

I’ll start the list.

College
Health care
Rent/Mortgage
Vacation
Charity
Food
Braces
Insurance
Books
Toys
Clothes
Car
The list is endless…

Even for drinking and drugging in moderation the question is valid regardless of scale or magnitude. Those buying a half case of beer or a dime bag shouldn’t rationalize “what’s the harm”, but instead maybe they should ponder what could have been gained?

Food for thought: Government estimates of illicit drug and legal alcohol sales exceed $200 billion annually in the US alone.