I feel sorry for addicts, there are a lot of reasons for taking drugs, peer pressure ---its only xxx and will make you really appreciate the music, (that one was once said to me!), insecurity, work pressure -- I need to stay awake to finish this etc etc. Then they try something stronger, and, they are hooked! I have been addicted to drugs all my life, United playing at home!, Fine Ales, single Malts, used to smoke 20 a day etc. It is the degree and dangerousness and that is where the difference lies.
The real villains of the piece are not the users, nor even perhaps some of the low level dealers, most of who are addicts themselves and do it to fuel their addiction, it is us, our society and our over tolerant behaviour, and the people we trust such as senior policemen and politicians, Customs officers and Prison Officers. Without collusion very few drugs would get in, someone does not check a particular Vehicle, someone makes a telephone call before a drugs raid etc. It is the acceptance that is the issue. Would people who buy a pack of cut price smuggled cigarettes in the Pub consider themselves as helping to fund the organisation that helps the young girl inject too much Heroin in her veins and die a horrible death? Well they are!
Like most of us who grew up in the 60's there were drugs everywhere, it was "fashionable" and whilst the 60's were great fun it was also a time where we destroyed our values and laid the foundations for the "loadsamoney" 80's and the subsequent issue we have today including a dramatic rise in drug use and import.
Stringent penalties for people like these two girls will not stem the tide, it will be much more careful scrutiny of people in positions of trust, it will be us really caring, seeing something and not just turning a blind eye. I remember once seeing someone obviously selling drugs on a street corner in Birmingham, and stopping my car a few streets away to tell a male and female police officers on foot patrol what I had seen -- they were not really interested! How will we stop drugs with attitudes like that?
Are the girls Guilty? Well that is up to the Law to discover and whilst I personally believe they are "banged to rights" the evidence will hopefully prove that and they will receive whatever punishment they deserve, and somewhere, some people will sit and drink their brandy and discuss how they can recoup their losses, probably in a large mansion, where "senior" figures frequently are wined and dined.
In the United States more people as a percentage of a population attend Church on a Sunday than anywhere in the World, but secretly they really worship another god -- Mammon! You can Murder, Rape, deal drugs, etc. and get treated relatively lightly if indeed ever even convicted --- just don't commit awful crimes like being Poor!
We need to change!
