John Ward ANALYSIS: Drugs users on high

DRUGS: Rationalising abuse is simply appeasement of a diseased Establishment

greencamtitleThe tabloids love to catch “unexpected” people taking drugs. I suppose it’s all part of the maintenance of some vague degree of respect for the dog collar, the public official, the footballer, the celeb, or even the Prime Minister. So it is that everyone’s had a ball in the media catching Paul Flowers scoring some coke, but nobody was terribly interested in why he was at the Co-Op in the first place….and the hypocrisy behind it. ‘Dopehead in Drugs Sting Media Frenzy’ sells more Redtops than ‘MPs in 100% silence conspiracy to swindle the poor’.

Flowers was around as window dressing, not for his competence: when he joined the Co-Op it was already a cockup. As a Slogger writes to me, ‘Flowers was appointed in 2010 i.e AFTER three unqualified men [other bankers] led their institutions over a cliff and left the taxpayer with over a trillion pounds of debt. Why didn’t the regulators say something then about Flowers and his lack of experience?’. Quite. Or the media, already?

I’ve been arguing for years about the hypocrisy surrounding drugs. The truth is that Class A drug use is endemic in that group of chancers who need every charge they can get to keep convincing themselves they’re special and Worth It. Cameron drivels on about it, himself a user of social relaxants – as is his Chancellor. As was Russell Brand. The upper echelons of our self-appointed Überklass either sell the stuff, hoover it up the conk, or both. Some of them launder it, but are also deemed too useful for jail: so it was that David Cameron (user) lobbied Barack Obama (user) not to press criminal charges against Baron Green (launderer) so he could have the chap ready and free to help his Chancellor (user) pretend that Britain is Open for Business. Before that, the PM had been employing a freelancer called Leon Brittan in the position.

Harken not unto what they say, but rather watch what they do. Then accept that you should expect nothing good to happen as long as such people are in power….and no concerted action to be taken against drugs suppliers and pushers.

Four days ago, Toronto’s City Council voted to strip Mayor Rob Ford of many of his powers after news outlets reported that he had been caught on video smoking crack cocaine earlier in the year. But get this: ‘Ford retains his title and ability to represent Toronto at official functions’. Not his place in the penitentiary, then? These are Ron Ford’s “credentials” for running a huge City: he had a reality TV show (ironic or what) had been a football player and coach, had been brought to trial in a conflict of interest scandal, and oh yes, was born into a family with loads of money. Who knows, maybe our own Boris Johnson has modelled himself on the bloke?

Once again here, the usual elements are on display: feigned shock at his drug abuse, feigned surprise about his ethics bypass, but no sign of the Mounties getting their man.

Patrick Kennedy, who is the son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, is now drugs straight, but he was bonged out of his brain while he was the Representative for Rhode Island. Representative Trey Radel of Florida pled guilty this week to cocaine possession, admitting that he purchased cocaine from an undercover cop. Louise Mensch admits she’s partial to the white powder (it shows). If you Google ‘drugs in politics’, the list of those involved would stretch from here to Saturn. And guess what? Increasingly common among the articles found there are “Movement to decriminalise drug use grows”.

I have friends who argue passionately that all drugs should be legalised – even given out free. I’ve two objections to this, as a drug (ie alcohol) abuser myself. First, reality is what we need right now, not more denialist dreaming. And second, legalising the stuff won’t get rid of the drug cartels and their laundering bankers now, will it? I’m all for letting people do what they want to do in private, but I draw the line at murder, torture, paedophile abuse, gouging the cat’s eyes out, and becoming just another pusher’s client. Regardless of all the strongly held sociological theory about why drugs should be tolerated, failure to help the citizens of the West get clean is simply corrupt appeasement of everything from Mexican psychos to Islamist poppy-pushers.

The thing to note about drugs is chiefly this: if parenting were better, life was more fulfilling, the playing fields were level, politicians didn’t use them, and the police weren’t used by the politicians, we would not have a drug problem. We didn’t have one at all (in any meaningful sense) before the late 1940s. People use drugs for three reasons: the high, the blot-out capacity, and the availability. It is true that life is sh*t and every society in history has had its wacky baccy, laughing-liquid or opium dens. We will never wipe it out, and lower down the danger list yes, we should tolerate it. But not knowing where to start isn’t an excuse for doing nothing.
Forty years ago, the same cynics said you’d never stop people smoking. Cigarette usage has, however, been decimated over that time. Lung cancer and drug dependence are socially expensive, community-destructive, and familially disastrous. The game should be to dedicate social policy on drugs to reducing the need, making it uncool, and restricting supply.
I know I’m way out of kilter with ‘progressive’ views on this issue, but my plea here is that I’ve never had a commonsensectomy. Civilisation flows from clean ethics, cool assessment and clean bodies – not a steady supply of mind alteration.