Moral courage and the drug problem

The Christian Science Monitor

In recent months, events in the United States and Latin America have vividly shown the price of fighting drugs, as well as the cost of indulging them. Yet more and more people are finding that if they rise up and refuse to accept the destruction of their neighborhoods by drug dealers, they can bring about change.

T. Willard Fair, who is with the Miami, Florida, branch of the Urban League, was interviewed by a television reporter^{Luix Overbea, Inner City Beat, August 27, 1989, Boston, WQTV .} who asked "How do you keep drug people out of the community? How do you drive them out?" He replied, "If you believe that you are helpless, then you will behave as if you are helpless. I happen to believe that we are not helpless." He went on to tell how their efforts had led to the arrest of over three thousand drug pushers during a three-year period.

Mr. Fair related this progress to a sense of outrage about what was happening. Outrage that leads to positive efforts to change the situation is certainly better than apathy or acceptance. The next step, however, in finding permanent solutions to the drug problem advances beyond outrage. This requires standing up to evil with the moral courage that we learn about from the life and works of Christ Jesus.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

The Lord of hosts is with you