There’s a song that I’ve come across that some might think should be played in jail cells. It is from the Blind Boys of Alabama, and the song is “No Dope.” The chorus goes, “We don’t need no dope, ‘cause we got hope.”

That song came to my memory last week when we had the incident on I-65 when suspects were caught throwing marijuana out the window. So much so that I had to play the song for our news staff again.

Sometimes, I wonder if we have become so numb to the message of such a simple song. Why are drugs so popular today? We have all the drug programs like D.A.R.E. and others that stress to kids that they don’t need to use drugs.

Actually, I do believe that we are seeing some improvement. Fewer people do seem to use the illegal drugs like marijuana, but unfortunately there is a growing number of people who are getting addicted to prescription drugs.

We have had several stories in the past of experts telling us that legal drugs like methadone, Xanax and Lortab are widely abused. In the past, Chilton County Coroner Randy Yeargan said these drugs have led to numerous suicides. Mixing these drugs can be a potentially lethal situation.

Then there are the legal drugs, such as nicotine and alcohol. In high school over the last 10 or 20 years, numerous videos have been shown to teens about the dangers of drinking and driving. There have been numerous others that have been telling us not to smoke.

They show us about what these drugs can lead to, but in the end, numerous people still do it anyway. I don’t know if it’s that we don’t care about what we do to ourselves or if we just don’t think we can break the addiction.

But maybe the reason why we can’t break that addiction is because, like the song implies, we don’t have hope. The drugs are an escape from a hopeless reality, but drugs won’t ever eliminate that lack of hope. It just makes you feel good for a while, and then the emptiness and hopelessness returns.

The song goes on to say that hope is Jesus, and I think it’s right.