Innocence or naivety?

I wanted to share something with you all that I just read. It goes hand-in-hand with my previous post, so thought it relevant here.

This is from the free magazine The Week that is published in Muscat...

"We [The Week] carried out an opinion poll...recently on how you would deal with a drug addict. We didn't know whether to laugh or cry at some of the answers. One said if he found his friend or family member adicted, first he would give him a 'good beating'. Then he would try and explain the harmful effects of drug use. Right. Thrash someone and that would put him/her in a receptive mood to listen to you pontificate about the harmful effects of drug use.

Reporting an addict to the police was an option that some chose, while one [respondent] clarified that...he would take the offender to his place and not inform the authorities or his parents as this would worry them. Another said that a drug culture could never take root here because the people are all peace-loving.

...One respondent distinguished between under-25 and over-25 drug addicts. The former...deserves to be talked to and made aware and the latter should just be reported to the police as they are 'mature enough to take responsibility for their actions.' So give the child a driving licence at 18, but he is not mature enough to understand he is doing something wrong.

And finally, my favourite one: if this person saw a drug deal happening, he would approach the dealer and try and tell him not to induldge in such activities.

These are all real people and this is what they believe."

(Mohana Prabhakar, author)

All I could do when I read this article was shake my head. Like Mohana has said in the article, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. My favourite is the one where the person who thinks telling the drug dealer to stop dealing because it is bad, will actually have an affect!

Disbelief!