Like any other parent with kids of a partying age, I shuddered when I heard the news of two young people dying at a music festival at the weekend.
Young people who like to party will probably try drugs at some time or another; it doesn’t matter what there background is, experimentation is no respecter of class or creed.
The Tweet from The Mutiny Festival where two died
However, whilst getting pissed, resulting in fighting, liver damage, stomach pumping and misguided promiscuity, is legal, taking and/or supplying drugs remains against the law of the land.
Of course it is a good thing that the little scrotes who supply tampered batches of drugs that kill teenagers are arrested, however, as soon as one scrote is nicked, another one is instantly on the scene to fill the void.
So why not remove the scrote equation from festivals altogether by allowing licensed legal high pharmacies that are controlled by Government sponsored experts?
Whilst that might seem overtly right on and liberal of me, I would rather know that my child was indulging in ‘clean’ drug use rather than buying pills full of rat poison, drain cleaner, and God knows what else, to make up the quantities.
To prove I am not trying to be some sort of trendy ageing Dad, I can honestly say that I would have no problem with prohibition of drugs if it worked but clearly, it doesn’t. As a consequence, vibrant young lives are wrecked by organ damage or terminated completely.
I have never really fully understood why drugs aren’t legalised and taxed in a way that would at least help to eradicate bad batches and the gang warfare that seems to be rife in our inner cities, with over sixty deaths this year in London alone.
Dealers and gangsters kill each other whilst bad batches of drugs kill young men and women, yet clean drugs kill far less people than cigarettes and alcohol and are less of a drain on public services such as the NHS. Without drugs to sell illegally there are no drug related gang wars, surely?
Perhaps a lot of the issues Western governments have with drugs come with the original source of the supply chain and the wealth it would cause in unstable countries such as Mexico, Columbia and Afghanistan? Don’t forget Pablo Escobar was once the 4th richest man on the planet, so if Columbia produced legally, it would be an incredibly wealthy place. America wouldn’t like that.
Whilst that maybe the case and is a subject that is way out of my league, it can’t be that simplistic as the same argument doesn’t equate to Ecstasy/MDMA because that can be manufactured anywhere.
I have done a bit of research for you all.
Ecstasy/MDMA was originally utilised the US Army in psychological warfare tests in the early 1950’s before making a 1960’s comeback as a psychotherapy medication, with its main purpose being to lower inhibitions.
It was in the 1970’s that MDMA became a party drug and by the early 1980s, still legal, it was widely regarded as the best laboratory made drug in town with users experiencing feelings of harmony, happiness and love. Then it got banned in 1985 and things turned ugly, resulting in dangerous sources of manufacture.
Modern Ecstasy contains a wide mixture of substances. These include LSD, cocaine, heroin, amphetamine and methamphetamine, rat poison, caffeine and even dog deworming substances. Unfortunately unlike when it was legal, a user never really knows what he or she is taking.
To add to the danger, if a user has failed to get high off one of the cocktails listed above and they take another pill from a different source, that is when the body and organs can start rejecting and going into shock, resulting in life changing internal injuries or death.
Then to make matters worse, there is ‘Liquid Ecstasy’. This is actually GHB, a nervous system depressant that can also be found in drain cleaner, floor stripper and degreasing solvents. Nice eh!
As you may have noticed, the title of this blog finishes with a question mark. That is because I am not qualified to say whether drugs should be legalised or not, I just think they should be, particularly manufactured Ecstasy.
Of course, education is key but all the indications are that licensed manufactured Ecstasy/MDMA pills are far less likely to damage someone than something purchased off a dealer where the ingredients are unknown.
Most parents would rather their kids didn’t get involved in drugs at all but it does happen, normally as just a bit of an experiment. Surely it would be better if they were purchased from a controlled source than some little shit selling rat poison?
I know what I would prefer, as it doesn’t seem fair that a kid having a bit of fun experimenting deserves to die as a consequence of naivety.
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