Last night, Closeup held its final Closeup Forever Summer music festival at SM Mall of Asia Concert Grounds. The hype for this event was phenomenal and the amount of people that went, I can imagine, was just as phenomenal.
Now, I wasn’t there last night, but I was there last year and it was enough to stop me from going again this year. Last year, the festival was chock-full of people, a lot of which were college students and some of which were clearly high on drugs. It’s hard to focus on enjoying the music with your friends when random kids come up to you, try to kiss you and grind on you, or grind on each other in front of you as if they were having sex with their clothes on. 
We ended up spending most of the night drinking in my friend’s car and moving from one spot to another when Martin Garrix came on just to avoid all of the crazy hormones that were running rampant all around us.
So, when I read this text message that was sent to a friend of mine, I had to call BS and speak up:
“Lacing of drinks”? I find that hard to believe. Why would anyone lace your drinks at Closeup? If anyone wanted to date rape you, I don’t think they would do it at Closeup because a lot of the people there are already high anyway and they could easily woo someone high there without wasting their own drugs.
The worst part? Some parents are actually thinking that the drinks were laced at the Closeup booths, meaning they are thinking that the people serving the alcohol at Closeup are the ones who laced the drinks with drugs and gave them to the kids to get them high. How does that make any sense? What would they get out of doing that? Did you ever stop to think that maybe your kids are going through an experimental stage and took drugs out of their own sheer will?
Why is it more believable that the kids took the drugs because they wanted to? Because that’s what today’s youth does. That’s how they get off. For some reason, it is no longer enough to hit it old school and stick to the natural high that music will give you (or the unnatural buzz that alcohol gives you). Today’s YOLO generation is all about dropping pills at tugs-tugs festivals, and it hurts to say this and think this, but let’s face it: a lot of today’s youth take drugs. On a regular basis.
How do I know this? I know a lot of young people. And they are very open about this. And that is the scariest part.
When did it become okay to take drugs so openly and to talk about it so openly? I might sound like a Lola here, but back in my day (I was born in 1987, if that helps put things into perspective), drugs were pretty taboo and if people did them, they did them hidden in their own homes or in the darkness of bathrooms. They didn’t down them with alcohol in an open parking lot before a big party and they were definitely not proud of it.
Aside from that, I heard that some kids last night bought their drugs from random dealers that they didn’t even know – just because they were selling the drugs for cheaper. Again: not a smart move.
Whatever happened to the world? Nowadays, the youth talks about drugs so openly and so casually, you’d think it was a normal thing to do. And maybe it is nowadays, but that doesn’t make doing it okay. And it definitely doesn’t make it okay to pass the blame onto the organizers of an event that welcomed you with open arms and were merely hoping to provide you with a fun and memorable night. I am not affiliated with Closeup nor is WhenInManila.com sponsored by Closeup, but I personally feel really bad that they have been given some of the blame for this.
I know it’s none of my business, but if you did do drugs, please just admit it to your parents and doctors and make things easier for them. If they know what you took, they’ll be able to treat you better and faster. Saying your drinks were laced doesn’t just shed a bad light on your friends, but also on the event and the organizers. Maybe they should have stricter age policies and have drug tests before letting people in next time. Would that make things better?
If you took drugs without knowing the consequences or if you weren’t responsible enough to take better care of yourself while on drugs, maybe you should stop taking drugs altogether.
Temporary happiness is not worth what you are doing to your bodies and to your loved ones. You don’t need drugs to be happy. If you truly believe that you do, then maybe your problem is deeper than the YOLO mentality.
Man. I can’t wait for Duterte to work his magic.
