By Seuamuli Desmond Bentin
According to a story in The Guardian by Australian based freelance Pacific Affairs reporter Joshua Macdonald, “the methamphetamine epidemic has reached all levels of society in Tonga, which has a population of 100,000. There are reports of drug use and dealing among church ministers, civil servants, politicians, traditional leaders and even police.”
What drew my attention to his story though was a sub-heading which was a quote from Dare to Dream spokesperson Eleni Levin-Tevi.
“It really woke parliament up”, said the not-for-profit spokesperson, after the King of Tonga made a rare public speech addressing the serious drug issue which has resulted in more than 60% of admissions to Tonga’s mental health wards being linked to illicit drugs.
There is no shortage of issues to keep parliament awake here in Aotearoa although I suspect some members could not sleep and stay awake more than others, for a variety of reasons.
Ironically, Auntie Cindy’s more pressing issue is not keeping people from smoking or shoving drugs up their nostrils but is actually trying to get more of them to take one and preferably two doses of the Pfizer Covid vaccine, which is not a drug, but has similarities that will do for the purposes of this story.
Ninety percent of each of the Maori, Pasefika, Pakeha and other racial groups, adding up to a total of nine hundred and ninety percent of the whole population, getting vaccinated by tomorrow, would be ideal. That’s a lot of burgers if all the other councils decide to follow the Taranaki lead and offer a bacon and egg buttie for a Shot, Bro’!
I haven’t had a bacon and egg burger for years. I think the last time was after I told Melissa that there were some cultures where men encouraged their wives to put on weight after they got married, so that the women would no longer be physically attractive to other men.
I thought it was one of my better moments of creative storytelling, but she told me to get stuffed, and went vegan. I guess I misjudged the extent to which she detested culturally based misogyny.
Now she faces criticism from people who tell her that she is too skinny and shouldn’t be wearing sports bras and tights at her age. She doesn’t ask for my opinion, but I suggest anyway that she should get fat and wear a tent, if it didn’t scare the dog.
I’m hoping that she would follow my lead and be more concerned about the effects of what we did, or did not do, to the mental wellbeing of my dog Boss.
He does not have access to a methamphetamine epidemic or cocaine glut as reported to be happening in the islands of the Pacific, which had the misfortune of being in the path of drugs from the Americas destined for the Aussie Boof heads.
If Joshua Macdonald’s information is more correct than the “Guns and Drugs in Samoa” saga of a few years ago and there is indeed “drug use and dealing among church ministers, civil servants, politicians, traditional leaders and even police”, I might start going to church again.
His story is about drugs in Tonga though. Not Samoa.