Friday, September 26, 2008

Taking smack or crack takes commitment too

If you only read one piece of commentary today then it's going to have to be Martin Samuel's in the Times on the subject of drugs because he is so totally right.

Personally I am sick to the back teeth of hearing this crap about how some aging popstar is influencing kids into crack and/or smack addiction. As Martin Samuel says, it takes real commitment to get to the point where you're shooting up.

To be pefectly frank it also takes effort to get yourself a crack addiction too. You're average dope dealer is unlikely to have a supermarket array of choice so that one day you can progress up the class rankings of narcotics. If you want crack you're going to have to get to know people, visit the right estates and/or places, probably rely on an introduction.

Basically, if you're going down that route you're going to put some effort in, which suggests, as Samuel puts it, that it's not about a gateway anymore, you're actually already "through the gate and on to the open highway". Reading Samuel's piece I am reminded of Thomas De Quincy's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" in which he talks about being a professional opium eater.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Quite. I am reminded of an interview with Nick Cave, who when asked why he had never spoken out against drug use following his notorious intake in the 1980s, responded that all he could really say was that he'd had the time of his life when he was on drugs, otherwise he wouldn't have done it.