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UK: Trust me, I'm a junior doctor: I don't know much about fashion,
Max Pemberton The Times
Monday 06 Feb 2006 Drugs are all part of the same underworld and taking them is, quite literally, buying into it, says Max Pemberton I am going to confess to something very unfashionable. And no, I'm not talking about the purple paisley shirt I bought in the January sales. I know this was a serious fashion faux pas, and I'm not even going to start on the fact that I bought a matching tie. They will never see the light of day and will remain at the bottom of my wardrobe. No, my confession concerns something that, given my age and liberal outlook, is more shocking. It concerns drugs. Usually, when people confess to matters concerning drugs, there's a policeman present and they're in handcuffs. But my confession is rather different: I abhor illicit drugs and have no time for people who take them. Big deal. Surely everyone's anti-drugs, aren't they? Apparently not. I feel the need to come clean after hearing about Kate Moss's return to the UK to be questioned by police about alleged drug-taking. While publicly denounced for her apparent actions, among many of the people I know, she was condemned not for allegedly taking drugs, but for getting caught. Drug-taking among young professionals seems to be perfectly acceptable. There is a feeling that drugs are fine if you can afford them, but evil if you can't, and so providing you don't have to bash old ladies over the head to get the money to pay for them - it's OK to take drugs. But this is where I get into deep water. It is actually not the smack-heads on the street whom I find riling, but, rather, the smug, educated classes who are titillated by the idea of dabbling in something a bit "naughty". Of course, we're not all doing drugs, but for those who do, there appears no shame in admitting it. Still, I have yet to hear someone say, "Oh, I've just been in the bathroom supporting global criminal networks, which include child prostitution and gang-land murders," because then you'd be a bit of a party-pooper, wouldn't you? Ironically, coming from a doctor, my feelings about drug-taking are not based on the damage they do to bodies. As far as I'm concerned, it's an individual's right to choose to do damage to himself. My feelings are based on what drug-taking does to other people. There is a fantastic amount of hypocrisy around drugs. While it's acceptable for the middle classes to snort and smoke whatever they like at the weekend, prostitution, gun crime, murder, extortion, burglary and armed robbery are roundly condemned. For a species of apparent intelligence, we can be exceptionally thick when it comes to cause and effect. When mugged, burgled, or worse, the likes of models would be the first to run to the police, failing to see that their weekend (or, in some cases, more regular) habits are part of the same chain of activity. It's just nimbyism. I'd be perfectly happy for people to take drugs, if they also accept the other things that come with the territory. After all, they've funded it, so why shouldn't they have to live with it? That would mean their grannies getting mugged and prostitutes hanging around their street. What strikes me as ludicrous is that the majority of my friends who admit to using illicit drugs would never consider drinking anything but the fairest of fair-trade coffee, while happily snorting substances for the sake of which innumerable people have died. But the executives and professionals - along with the likes of supermodels - live a rarefied existence, divorced from the more unpleasant aspects of an underworld they are so happy to finance. Heroin is not chic. From cannabis to coke, drugs are all part of the same underworld and taking them is, quite literally, buying into it. It doesn't matter if it's taken in a trendy nightclub, the comfort of your own house, or some back street, it is ensuring that an industry based on exploitation, fear and murder is perpetuated. But, while it enrages me when I hear about people doing drugs, it's unfashionable to admit it; unlike Kate Moss, I have never been that good at fashion. And, I've got the purple paisley shirt, with matching tie, to prove it.
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