Pseudoephedrine's been on everyone's lips today here as the Young Feller just found out you now have to sign up if you're buying cough & cold medications at the Chemist. I don't know if this is something that's being imposed nationwide, but it's serious here because locally at least pseudoephedrine is the party drug of choice. People stockpile it, as being a small town, any new supplies of illicits into the place are usually quickly intercepted by the police. The pharmacist (who works in an alter-ego role at the Silver Bullet on the weekends) has always grilled me fiercely about any Sudafed I've bought, wanting to know if I've got any other cold & flu medications at home, if I've bought any somewhere else today, how much I'm intending to take, etc.
One thing I still don't really get about the Territory is why it seems to have such major problems per capita with substance misuse when prohibitive measures are constantly being applied...other than to think that it's a sign that problems here are deeply entrenched. Admittedly, Alice itself still has approximately 40 % more licensees per capita than the rest of the Territory – which has to be high by national standards – such maybe it's difficult to make much of a dint on these problems.
Coincidentally, I read a health release today about how a normal dose of pseudoephedrine was implicated in a heart attack in a 32 yo man in the States, so I took the opportunity to play my prophet of doom role yet again ('crikey, you're always reading those things', the Young Feller said). But being a hyperalert insomniac type, the idea of becoming massively speedy, clear-headed and dehydrated all at once has never really appealed to me all that much. My job's also turning me into a total paranoid wowser, more so than I've ever been in the past, especially since I now have a rationale to justify reading obscure public health releases on the ill effects of grog and drugs (like, more acute deaths (stroke, heart attack) occur in younger rather than older age groups as a result of drinking – because they binge drink more).
Also -- kind of horrified and amused about the Tara School story ....(1a) horrified that the school could have been so draconian as to suggest to the girl involved that being raped was all her own fault and to shut up -- and not think it was all going to come out in the wash eventually in this day and age, (1b) horrified by the short skirt line-of-questioning (perhaps they read The First Stone for background research) and (2a) amused because it involved the Tara School, who were always a subject of scorn and derision on the school bus, along with the Kings School (tho the Kings boys with their stories of ‘soggy Sao’ were somewhat more formidable, despite their poncy uniforms), plus (2b) further amused that they can have told the girl that she had to write a statement apologising to the teachers & saying she wouldn’t to return to the school, although she was:
‘still welcome to be a Tara old girl.’
I always thought it was a gammon school...whatever the in's and out's, clearly they failed in their duty of care massively somewhere here.
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