There has been quite a bit of comment about the 14 year old boy currently up on drug charges in Bali. Much of it nonsense, a lot of it emotional dribble and quite a lot of it straight out lies.
Before we continue, let me say straight out that I have never taken narcotic drugs intentionally. The only drugs I have ever taken was the partial eating of a marihuana cookie in 1978. I've never understood the attraction of drugs and why people would voluntarily get involved in a lifestyle which is expensive, unhealthy and dangerous.
Having said that a few questions need to be asked about how this boy came to be in possession of the marihuana in the first place. I don't go along with the nonsensical claim that the boy is the victim of police corruption. Many thousands of Australians visit Bali each year and they manage to return without getting involved with drugs or the police or ending up in jail. And why would the police want to set somebody up like this? If the police are indeed corrupt, why has the boy ended up in jail? Surely the boy and his parents would have been able to come up with the bribe money to keep the boy out of jail and have the charges dropped? It is a nonsense argument which is being put forward by ignorant people looking for excuses.
Another thing that many people haven't considered was why the boy was in the sleazy area of Denpasar in the first place. According to media reports he was about to go for a massage. Massage? We all know what this word is a euphemism for.
We all need to step back a bit and have a cold shower. We are talking about a foreign country where the laws are very different than here. Talk that it might affect Aussie tourism to Bali are wide of the mark to say the least. This is the location where there were not one but two terrorist bombings in 2002 and 2005 killing over 100 Australians. Tourism did not drop as a result of those events and it is fanciful to suggest that a 14 year old boy being caught with drugs will have the slightest effect on a multi-million dollar industry.
All too often Australians in Bali treat the place as a third world playground where they can go, do whatever they like and act as badly as they can and there will be no consequences. This attitude was examined in the 1984 Redgum song I've Been To Bali Too. The main demographic who visit the island - young men - are especially prone to risky and larrikin behaviour and the abuse of alcohol and other drugs.
We shouldn't be any more sympathetic in this instance because an underage minor is involved. Drugs are drugs and the law is the law. If anything good comes out of this case it will be that Australian tourists mind their p's and q's when travelling overseas and respect the local laws and customs. Judging by the reaction this case has generated in this country, that might be a forlorn hope.
