SOME SEAFARERS ARE OCCASIONAL DRUG USER

He is a junior officer, an effervescent young man and full of confidence and hope for his family. Two other seamen with the rank of ratings share the same purpose driven life with the junior officer. At first glance, one might say that they’re really having that purpose driven life because endeavors has taken them to where they are now. Although the three are vivacious, high-spirited and often deployed overseas, the sailors nonchalantly identify themselves as occasional drug users.

I came to know their secret one after the other after taking a cue from Sherlock Holmes and from other detective stories with psychological twist I had read. My investigative instinct paid-off when I had a conversation with them in separate occasions. The junior officer was unflinching in his revelation. He was too honest in his storied life as a drug user. He told me that he started using illegal drugs during his college days and up to the time when he became a seafarer. He likewise confided that his occasional drug use was part of his routine during his month long vacation.

The rating of whom I have had a nice conversation with during in our pirate watch keeping duty while our ship was sailing somewhere in Malacca strait, also opened his sullied life of taking illegal drugs which, according to him was the cause of his being unemployed for years after he and other personnel where fired from their jobs aboard a big cruise ship that sails all over the world. He told me that during that time illegal drug use was prevalent among ship personnel, both men and women.

The other rating was of the same predicament of substance use every time he’s on vacation. Aside from being a cockfighting aficionado this rating spend his time in drug session. The three earns salary good enough to sustain the needs of their family & I think that they have much of it why they waste their dollars to drugs and other vices.

I asked them why they still get employed despite of the fact that they undergo medical, laboratory and psycho test examinations prior to their deployment abroad. I was surprised when told that drugs (methamphetamine hydrochloride or poor man’s cocaine) easily removed or released from the system of the human body within 24 hours. I don’t know if this argument is true but one thing I’m pretty sure that there are seafarers from all over the world that are occasional drug user. I have no intention of defiling the unidentified seafarers but to call the attention of employers, manning agencies & concerned authorities to make a profound assessment of the issue that had been lingering for quite some time now.