This is a story about bath salts and plant food...

What the hell happened to me during the last few years, and am I a lost cause, doomed to a life of addiction, crime, health problems, before an early death? Are there 'choices' you make in your life that cause irreparable damage, and turn you into a modern-day leper, who should be shunned by society?

For any parent, there must always be the worry that your kids are going to go off the rails, and destroy their lives. Whether it's your teenaged daughters getting pregnant, or your unruly sons getting in trouble with the law... the number of things that are out to get your precious children are innumerable. It's a wonder that you can sleep at night.

But what do you do once somebody has gone off the rails? Is it best to write them off, and concentrate on any offspring who have stayed on the straight and narrow, not wandered off the path and gotten lost in the murky mists and quagmire of addiction?

Chances are, somebody you know has had their problems with alcohol or some kind of mind-altering substance. They might be spending what little disposable income that they have on Cannabis and being stoned throughout their few waking hours, whilst playing mindless computer games and stuffing junk food into their mouths. They might be getting into a cycle of debt and crime, as they pursue the unquenchable thirst for Cocaine or Heroin.

It's pretty clear that addicts can waste a lot of time and money, very quickly. But what does it mean, quickly, when time apparently runs at the same speed for all of us? "It all happened so quickly" friends and relatives wail, when a loved one slips away from them, into the depths of a destructive addiction.

Clearly, something doesn't add up. Yes, it's possible to become addicted very quickly, but does that mean that a person's life is irretrievably lost, a personality is forever changed, and your son/daughter/brother/sister/friend is gone as soon as that needle hits their veins, as soon as that powder goes up their nose, as soon as that smoke hits their lungs?

The idea that a person is a lost cause as soon as drug experimentation turns into habit and abuse, is just as ridiculous as imagining that a person is dead as soon as they catch a cold. The human body is remarkably resilient, and the mind and brain can adapt in reverse, just the same way that damage was done in the first place.

The sooner that you label a person, ostracise them, marginalise them and give up on them, the less chance there is of their recovery. Standing back in the hope that things will get better is the very worst thing that you can do. Addiction is a fire that rages through a building. Put out the fire when it's a few flames in a wastepaper basket, and a major disaster is averted, but if you wait until it's a raging inferno, then there will have to be some major rebuilding work. It's only a reluctance, a hesitation, from acting in a kind and compassionate way, that condemns addicts to an early grave.

I was able to buy this "China White" on the day that the the Government's new drug legislation was supposed to be enacted as law in the United Kingdom. In theory, this law was supposed to ban the sale of any psychoactive substances, including the legal highs and research chemicals which are openly on sale in shops and on the internet.

For those who are unfamiliar with drug terminology, China White is the name of a particularly pure form of Heroin. From a glance at the ingredients list on the unopened packet of chemicals, pictured above, this legal high is more of a stimulant. It would not have any opiate-like effect.

When the people who are packaging and selling legal highs don't even know the significance of the name they are giving to their product, such that a stimulant is sold under the name of a famous type of heroin, which would send you to sleep or even cause you to stop breathing and die if you overdosed... well, prohibition and ignorance are clearly the main risks to the public, not the availability of substances.

Cocaine & Cannabis are class A & B drugs, respectively, making them illegal to buy and sell. This has been the case for so many years that we surely have enough data to say whether the law is an effective way of curtailing drug consumption within the UK. I challenge anybody to take a walk over the canal bridge in Camden Town, London, on a Friday or Saturday night and not be offered both drugs at least once if you catch the eye of one of the shady characters hanging around in plain sight.

I've been offered Cannabis, Cocaine, Ecstasy (MDMA), Heroin and Crack on the streets of London, long before I dabbled with these illicit chemicals. There isn't a flashing neon sign above my head that says "ADDICT", so the only logical conclusion to draw must be that prohibition has done nothing to impact the sale and purchase of illegal drugs.

Rather than spending precious parliamentary time debating progressive drug policy that would save lives and reduce crime, following the model of Portugal, the UK has ramped up its prohibitionist stance, which clearly causes crime, misery and death. Drug addicts are convenient scapegoats, but surely as all experts agree that addiction is a medical condition, a courtroom is no place for a suffering individual to be treated.

Convenient scapegoats win political campaigns and sell newspapers, as well as giving simple-minded ignorant fools some kind of easy place to point the finger of blame and understand the complexities of a world that doesn't break down into black & white, cowboys & indians, cops & robbers, right & wrong, good & evil etc.

Thinking that you know an addict's story, by tarring every person with the same brush, is a shameful state of affairs. There is collective responsibility for the suffering of addicts, and the victims of crime that are created. They are two sides of the same coin, and victim-blaming the addicts is hurting some of the very people you are supposed to love and care for.

If you want your children to grow up in a safer, happier world, and to sleep a little easier at night, knowing that any of your children who do go off the rails can be shepherded back to the flock before you have to bury them... I suggest that everybody educates themselves a little more, before you are too quick to condemn, to make assumptions, and to fill in the blanks in your knowledge with tabloid ignorance.

If it can happen to me it can happen to anybody. I bought "NRG-3" off the internet, which turned out to be "bath salts" which turned out to be MDPV, which tipped internet billionaire John McAfee into temporary insanity

Tags: #addiction #drugs #politics