The New Free

I have been short circuiting on the drug issue for a very long time. As a teenager in the 60s I came of age watching elders deal with addictions to prescription drugs which are now illegal. I probably sampled most of those drugs as their change in legal status made them more available on the more teen-accessible black market. Half a century of the confusion is a seriously tangled thread. Changing the name "drug" to "medication" only heightened the confusion for me. I am multi-lingual. Multiple words for a single object is second nature for me. It takes a fanatical mono-linguist to believe another word for it will change its nature.
The D.A.R.E. Education of the 80s is where it all collided with the New Free for me when my first-grader - now 32 - had a routine case of bronchitis. I had gone to the "drug store" to pick up his medicine and he refused to take them because he was Drug Free like his teachers had taught him to be. The bronchitis grew into pneumonia. DARE on, good buddy. This mama developed her first case of mandated medication. Trying to explain the difference between amoxicillin and heroin to a first grader is certainly not effective. Not even when they are healthy.
The word "Free" appears to have become a trigger for me. It means I am obligated to sit through another series of debates and to watch another body of laws grow in response to the debate. Drug Free. Med free. Smoke free. _____ free.
Onward through the fog...