Another unflattering foreign article that refers to Chile’s drug problem.
I suspect that drug consumption may be at least partly responsible for the manifest irrationality at all levels that has affected the country over the last few years.
Espinosa noted that while Chile was ranked in the top ten of cannabis consumers per capita in the world, the country also ranked high in a number of other startling categories compared to the rest of South America, like most obese, highest alcohol consumption, and opioid use…
…“We are an addicted nation. Chile is the highest consumer of everything.”
One of the cultural shocks I experienced when I first moved to Chile was how tolerant Chileans are of cannabis use; in the UK its use is typically confined to petty criminals, ageing hippies or students, and used discreetly behind closed doors, whereas in Chile I’ve known nurses and teachers openly admitting to smoking and even growing their own plants at home, and seen taxi drivers and delivery drivers brazenly lighting up joints in the street. I once saw a “legalize cannabis” protest in Baquedano where the air was thick with cannabis smoke and dealers were openly selling their wares while the Carabineros were stood watching barely twenty yards away, doing nothing to stop them.
Recently i was on a phone call and had walked away from the music/hubub of where we were eating. There were some workers doing road work in the street or something and as I was on the phone i noticed a wine box…ole los gatos. Didnt pay any mind until a street dog came over and was nosing around my feet and the wine box. He was licking the open wine box edges and I was trying to shoo him away because he was dripping wine slobber near my shoes
While this is going on one of the street workers with vest come over saying somethint to me…i figured they wanted me to move or get out of the way or something so i just smiled and waved and walked on.
I looked back after 10 paces and the guy was drinking the wine box! And then 2 other guys (also street workers) came over and they are passing around the box slurping it
So now i think they were asking me if the dog drank any or possibly if I had drunk any lol
Funny but day drinking wine box street workers does seem like the behaviour of an addict. Good thing they were just repairing the road and not someones brain in the OR
Can’t find any way to include video here, so here is a dropbox link to an animated gif showing just some events captured on cctv over several hours, from the illegal trash dumping to its final removal by the garbage men.
Its also quite common to see these types picking up cigarette dog-ends, aka puchos…
This little rincón offers some concealment from oncoming traffic and is used for all kinds of incivilidades, (some of them completely unpublishable), plus a lot of pasta base smoking by clients from the dealers who had set up shop just round the corner. The current house tenant has rigged up a shower hose over that area to discourage the worst offenders.
DC Senator Walker proposing universal drugs testing for all government functionaries.
"…Para lograr aquello dijo que "es muy importante el test de drogas respecto de todos los poderes del Estado, respecto del poder Ejecutivo, del poder Legislativo y del poder Judicial".
It’s a good idea, but don’t think that this senatorial initiative will prosper somehow…
