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 - --- MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman