Pubdate: Thu, 22 Sep 2005
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2005 Telegraph Group Limited
Contact:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

DINNER PARTIES AND DESIGNER DRUGS

Scratch The Surface Of Middle-Class Society And The Level Of Cocaine 
Use Is Truly Staggering, Says Anna Blundy

Before I was married I had a relationship with a man I'd known since 
childhood. His parents had horses and a house in the country. He was 
in the media. About a week after I'd met him at a friend's party he 
called me at 11am and asked me to come and pick him up in Regent's 
Park. He had no money and he had, he said, been up all night taking 
crack. I laughed and got into my car to fetch him.

He spent all day asleep at my house, but it was not until about three 
months later that I realised he hadn't been joking. In my naivety, I 
was staggered that someone I knew, someone educated, handsome, 
accomplished and funny had actually been up all night taking crack 
cocaine. And not for the first time.

So, anyone who was so much as slightly surprised that Kate Moss was 
pictured allegedly snorting cocaine is not aware of the facts - posh 
people take drugs. Not that Kate Moss started out posh, of course, 
but she is thin and rich and famous for being a party girl. 
"Partying" is a euphemism for doing drugs. Celebrities are forever 
saying in interviews: "X was partying a lot at that time."

What they mean is that they were addicted to drugs - usually, judging 
by the ex-public school junkies I know, heroin and crack. So many 
rich people are buying heroin from children on Notting Hill street 
corners or having it delivered by moped to their homes, that a few 
lines of cocaine of an evening have apparently become as acceptable 
as the odd joint used to be.

Not legal, a bit wacky, but hardly to be remarked upon. It is not at 
all unusual for people to sit around after dinner snorting lines of 
cocaine and shaking their heads sadly over all their friends who have 
developed a "real" drug problem. It is important to note that nobody 
ever has a "real" drug problem themselves, in the same way that 
nobody ever thinks they themselves are rich.

It is vital for drug takers to be around people with a worse habit 
than theirs. Regular cocaine users will always have friends who smoke 
crack and heroin (and even they aren't real druggies, because they 
don't inject), thus allowing themselves the illusion of being in 
relative control.

When my son was a baby, I went to a birthday party in a country house 
at which quite a few of the affluent mothers put their children to 
bed and went back downstairs to snort cocaine all night. I found one 
little girl wandering around the house crying just before dawn, her 
mum (not to mention her dad) in no state to hear her or take care of her.

One boy I was at school with is still institutionalised 20 years 
after an acid trip from which he never came down. Another friend was 
imprisoned when she killed a pedestrian in her car after a heavy 
night. In fact, drug use is so common that I often get sneered at for 
finding it pathetic.

Drugs are a prop for people who feel inadequate and don't like it 
(the rest of us just have to put up with our inadequacies) and I 
think this is easy to overlook, especially when the users seem to 
have every reason in the world to enjoy life sober. It is surprising 
that Kate Moss, envied by every woman alive, apparently finds it 
difficult to cope. But evidently she does. Having fun accounts only 
for the most occasional use and even then people talk about the 
horrible depression of coming down, and the famous paranoia.

Though H&M has now dropped Kate and the police are to investigate her 
alleged drug abuse, one journalist supportively pointed out that if 
everyone in the media got sacked for taking cocaine then newspaper 
offices would be empty, television off the air, catwalks (surely) untrodden.

If that is true, then it is very sad that so many children must be 
waking up every morning to parents who have been off their heads all 
night. Every time I see another celebrity bowed over a table with a 
rolled fiver up their nose, I feel sorry - for them, and, in this 
case, for the little girl in the country house whose mother should 
(and probably does) know better.

* 'Faith Without Doubt' by Anna Blundy (Headline) is available for 
UKP 7.99 plus 99p p&p. To order please call Telegraph Books on 0870 428 4112
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman