I’m unusual for my generation. When I went to high school, we had drugs and drug users. That was true in my school, and after I left, I learned that a uniformed police officer had been assigned to patrol the hallways when school was in.

We knew, and our teachers warned us, that washrooms on one side of the school were controlled by drug gangs. We would walk to the other side of a huge campus, to use a washroom. For some reason, the drug dealers stayed away from the side where vocational courses were taught.

When we moved around the school, we stayed away from some stairwells because that’s where the stoners slept. We didn’t like stepping over them.

I didn’t think much about this, at the time, but now I wonder why we tolerated those problems. I have memories that scare me now.

One of my best friends got into drugs and traveled to California. He damaged his brain, probably with LSD, and I heard something about him climbing a tree, and he had to be rescued and treated in a psych facility.

He was deported back to Canada, and he was never allowed to return to the U.S. I don’t think he could travel, anyway; he was barely functional. After he returned home, he became a sincere Christian, and he found a job in a food processing plant. I met him a few times, and we were still friends, but he was not normal. I guess that he is now one of my dead friends.

These memories are painful for me.

I almost never meet old friends from those days. I’m healthy, but I think most of them are dead now. I used to follow some friends on Facebook until the lights went out for them.

If you are wondering, I had parents who were strict and religious, and they kept us clean.

I am grateful now.

The only old friends that I meet are the ones like me who did not use drugs.

Did you know that drugs have changed, since then?

• READ: Fentanyl overdose deaths surged 279% since 2016 while heroin deaths fell: CDC

I was at a meeting recently, and a speaker told us about the new “safe drugs” that the government is giving to addicts. I have wondered about this program. It seemed strange that the government could find a “safe” supply of illegal drugs, and give them to people. That would make the government a drug dealer, and those drugs are always dangerous.

We learned, in the meeting, that addicts are supplied with approved narcotics, and they get them from a drug store, with a prescription from a doctor. The drugstore narcotics are addicting and dangerous, but the plan is for addicts to take the approved drugs from a safe source, and stay away from criminal drug dealers.

We were told, at the meeting, that addicts collect their approved drugs, at a drugstore and then sell them on the street. The money that they make by dealing is spent on the illegal drugs that they want; the drugs that kill. Those “safe” drugs don’t have the kick that they want.

Some governments are now reviewing those “safe” distribution programs, and some programs might be closed down.

I know of a family, whose daughter traveled to a bigger city, possibly to study in a university. The young woman decided to use marijuana one evening, and she was in Canada, where marijuana is legal. But she decided to save herself some trouble and buy her legal drugs from an illegal drug dealer. She didn’t know that the dealer’s marijuana had an extra kick. It was mixed with fentanyl.

She was found dead the next day.

I feel very sorry for the family.

• READ: Deadly drug just ‘a click away,’ warns grieving Ontario family

My general impression is that those of us who did not use drugs, but were close to the users, became very religious. We learned early, that the idols of this world are not something we should pray to.

For us, the drug problem is personal. It’s not just a coffee-break talking point.

We know that we have an enemy; we have seen his best work.

“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)

If you are like me, and you have lost someone to drugs and alcohol, you know the drug “problem” which is better described as a curse.

If you have fallen into addiction, and you want a way out, you know how difficult that is. And the new illegal drugs kill us. Just in my city, the death toll is probably several hundred a year.

The problem has its own solution.

I apologize if this article is too morbid for some people, but I know, that we need to know some things. We are living in a dangerous world, with an enemy who wants to “devour” us.

For me, the God in Heaven is a much better option than any God in this world.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children.” (Psalm 104: 13 to 17)