Many years ago in the dawning
of my life I suffered tragedy enough to understand the damage caused by the
least of all drugs, marijuana. I was a child of seven forced grown by
circumstances beyond my control.
Life in Jamaica was fast becoming unbearable.
Jobs were difficult to get, and they didn't pay much. The bite from the
mortgage on our home sank deep into my family's economic resources, and to make
matters worse, war had practically broken out between Jamaica's two leading
political parties, the Jamaican Liberation Party, and the People's national
Party.
Times went from bad to worse and it became
necessary for my mother to make the difficult decision to leave Jamaica to find
work, and to temporarily leave my brother and I in the care of one of her
friends, who eventually left us with our uncle Herbie. The day my mother left I
cried violently for at that time I did not understand why she was leaving.
Herbert Philips was the only uncle I knew. He
was a wonderful man, tall, handsome, brilliant, and exquisitely gifted. He
could draw, paint, sculpt, and design. The depths of his talents were
astonishing. I remember one night as my brother, our uncle, and I sat around a
fire; my uncle drew from the fire a burning piece of wood and began sculpting
it with a butter knife. With a butter knife he transformed this piece of wood
into a sculpture that so profoundly reflected the culture and history of
Jamaica that all who saw it, viewed it with great admiration. I thought that my
brother and I were fortunate to have been placed in his care.
When the wind of change begins to blow, men
must twist with the wind and when it blows for ill, we must find in ourselves
the strength to persevere. My uncle began smoking ganja (marijuana); my
childhood was about to end.
Within a few months a monster replaced the
kind and gentle man who had once been my uncle. He became extremely
belligerent. His abuse was at first directed toward his live-in girlfriend, but
she mustered enough courage to leave him. It was then that my nightmare began;
I then became the object of his abuse.
The first time that he beat me was the worst
for it was then that I realized that the man I knew as my uncle was gone
forever. He had called me and he felt that I had not responded fast enough. He
started to yell and worked himself into a violent frenzy. I was terrified as he
seized me by both shoulders and started shaking me. He was talking but I
couldn't hear him; I was too scared. I looked up into his eyes with childish
innocence and terror, and for a second I thought I saw my uncle. The gentleness
in him was protesting this heinous act and my heart filled with hope...but just
as suddenly, it filled with despair. The monster had won. The marijuana won and
he hit me. That was my last memory of childhood.
Twelve years later I am sitting in a college classroom listening to my classmates as they speak about drugs. They hardly mention marijuana because they don't think that it's harmful. I hold my anger in my heart because I don't think they would understand. Marijuana robbed me of my uncle, almost took my life, and robbed the world of a brilliant artist. I wonder how many people marijuana has done this to. I wonder about all the people who don't survive the experience. The point isn't which drug is the least harmful; the point is that drugs destroy, whether it's cocaine, heroine, alcohol, crack, or marijuana. They all kill and there is no measurement of how dead you are.
By Errol W. Angus
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