Cocaine

As you I'm sure you've probably noticed, I try to stick to non-controversial topics.
So tonight will be no exception.

Since the Bank Holiday means that Monday night is kind of a Sunday night too, you get Music mixed into this post to a greater degree than normal.

All on that wonderfully non controversial little powder.

Cocaine.

Before we start, the results of whether or not you thought that Islam itself, meaning the actual religion, was the enemy of our lives.
You didn't.

You have a new issue to vote on this week- and I'm sure you already know what it is. But read the post before you get clicking on that poll.

I have chosen Cocaine for a very simple reason.

In 1920 the eighteenth amendment to the US constitution was passed prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol. It's widely agreed that one defining factor in this was that the brewing industry were saying 'ban spirits not beer', whilst the distilleries said 'ban beer not spirits'.

The point is, that Cocaine being a 'hard' drug, so called, it allows me to nail my colours to the mast and state; All prohibition is futile, stupid, and ultimately creates a culture where the law itself is tacitly despised as an ass.

Because all the arguments I am going to use here have relevance to other 'illegal drugs', and I'm assuming that if you can support legalising Cocaine, you are almost certainly behind legalising anything 'softer'.

Having said that, I don't want this post to be taken at ultimate face value and it be assumed that I propose legalising Heroin. This post does NOT propose blanket legalising for over the counter sale Heroin any more than it does Arsenic or Cyanide. And the reasons it why it doesn't, are exactly the same.

Now, let's just have a look at the underlying assumptions behind the war on drugs.
And actually, they can be summed up in one very simple phrase. One you've heard so many people use. It's a truism.

'If Alcohol had been discovered in the sixties, as opposed to having always been with us, they'd have banned it.'

Too damn right they would have done.

You compare Alcohol to almost any drug you can think of. It's an awful drug, if used in the wrong way. The town centres of any English city on a Friday night prove that. The police cells on a Saturday morning likewise prove it.

But would you really want to ban it?

Like a lot of things, its a kneejerk reaction. And of course, most people don't think.
The commonest image that most people who have never touched Cocaine have of Cocaine, is Daniella Westbrook facing the camera to reveal that in her case, where nostrils were concerned, two had become one.



And this of course, just adds more grist to the mill. Do a line of Coke, your nose falls out.

Ok.

Well, I guess the best thing for me to do here is put my hands up and admit I've done Cocaine in my life.
In fact, I'll go further. From your point of view, I've done a LOT of Cocaine. From Daniella Westbrook's point of view, I've hardly touched it.

You see, there IS a huge difference between USE and ABUSE. Something we seem to understand when it comes to alcohol. But not Ecstasy, Cannabis, or - Cocaine.

To be sure, if you abuse Cocaine, the results really aren't good. Ms Westbrook's septum proves that. But they'd never have used Oliver Reid in beer adverts either.

Francis Rossi- he of Status Quo fame and likewise a man who lost his septum- reckons he polished off about 150 kilos of the stuff in his lifetime.
Now this is abuse. It's not rational use- it's high level addiction funded by having more money than sense.



What you don't realise is that thousands of ordinary professional people shell out on Cocaine every weekend and have perfectly intact septums.

I think the problem with the 'drugs' debate (God I hate that word, the grouping together of so many diverse stimulants together in a blanket bag of evil), is that it's based on so many logical fallacies.

The anti drug lobby simply have to say 'It can do this, if you do too much', or 'We don't know yet what it might do, because not enough research has been done'.

What kind of arguments are these? And apologists spend too much time fighting these non-sequiters.
Firstly, the burden of proof should rest with those seeking to prohibit. Not those seeking to defend individual liberty.
Secondly, proof that something CAN prove harmful, if misused, does not mean that there might not be positives which distinctly outweigh those negatives.

Which is why Cocaine is such a good example to use.
Because Cocaine has obvious, tangible, demonstrable negatives.

It costs. It costs a lot of money. Most drugs are dirt cheap, so the argument that they cause people to commit crime- other than the crime of buying or selling them doesn't hold too much water. With Cocaine, the simple cost of the drug and its powerful attraction means that it can conceivably lead people to take drastic measures.

Non sequiter. This one very good example of a case where the fact that it is a seller's market and its a drug very much in demand, means that the street price of this drug is astronomical compared to production costs.

With most drugs, if you legalised them and taxed them at the same rate you do tobacco (about 80% of the price you pay being tax), the cost to the user would remain largely unchanged. With Cocaine, it would drop substantially.

The fact is, people are prepared to pay good money for it.

And the fact is, no one stops to ask why? Why are people prepared to pay so much money for an illegal drug? We ARE talking £40 approximately a gramme.
It's a lot of money.

Cocaine is NOT a drug you can use on income support. Crack, yes. But for reasons, I'm not going to go into here, that's actually a Cocaine PRODUCT, essentially transmuted into a narcotic. It's not the same thing.

I'll tell you what the real point about Cocaine is.

A huge number of people have actually already, through EXPERIENCE, made Cocaine their drug of choice. They've decided, one way or another, it gives value for money. In a way alcohol most certainly does not.

I used to use it loads. I hardly touch it now- but that's not for any particular reason other than I tend to be slightly less wild than I once was, and I have a career to think about. It's the law and the cost. But there are still times when I won't say no. The fact is, it's a very pleasurable stimulant.

It's difficult to explain to someone who has never used it what the attraction is. The best way I can explain it, is that is both an anaesthetic and a stimulant.

So it sedates you as well as stimulating you.

My favorite words to describe it are 'serene' and 'tranquil'.



It puts you in a calm frame of mind, it totally relaxes any nervous tension you might have, yet at the same time heightening your awareness and your co-ordination. It hones your thought patterns into straighter lines, it enhances your cognitive abilities.

You feel as Sauron does when he puts the ring on his finger.

It's not everyone's stimulant at all, not at all. Some people shouldn't use it. But some people shouldn't drink either.

Some of the most advanced thought processes in my life have happened whilst using Cocaine. Some of the post here that I would say were conceptually my best, weren't actually written on Cocaine, but they were composed on it. They were composed in conversations at parties and emerged in post form at some later point.

I'm not going to say that Cocaine doesn't have many negative qualities. Look at Daniella Westbrook's missing Septum and you'll see, of course it does.

But life is about balances and you can't get something for nothing. Everything has a price, and certainly Cocaine can demand a price, as can most things.

But it is my belief that people should have the right to make their own mind up on this things.

Cocaine, like anything else, can cause pleasure, but ultimately it can cause pain in terms of human cost, it can deliver misery too, I don't deny that.

It can cause enlightenment, transcendance, cognitive liberation, or even, just a great night with a wealth of beautiful emotions.



And in some cases it can fry people's brains and lead to drug induced psychosis. There's no denying that.

But does it actually OVERALL offer more positives than negatives to the potential user?
My view? If used in moderation, yes. I reckon over the last ten yours about four hundred grammes have gone up my nose. That might be four hundred grammes more than you, but it's 149,600 grammes LESS than it took to deprive Francis Rossi of his septum.

On the whole, weighing it up, most people who come across it, tend to find that it becomes their drug of choice. It doesn't mean they turn into crazy Coke fiends, just that all things being equal it is, when used in moderation, the thing that potentially gives MOST, in terms of value for money, and in terms of mental and physical recovery after usage, hurts least.

The law right now only offers us the people ONE drug of choice. And it's about the worst choice of the lot.
I think society would be a lot better off if we allowed people to make their OWN choices on this.
And actually allowed people to gain knowledge on things from better sources than the Government message 'Drugs are bad' and the dealer's message 'Go on, it's cool.'

Because Cocaine isn't bad at all, not if used responsibly, no more so than Vodka- and a lot more mentally stimulating and conducive to creating good company.

I'm going to come out and say, I think that not only should Cocaine be legal, but actually using it in moderation actually has huge benefits to the individual.

Mankind has found so many stimulants that are BETTER for it than fermented berries and fermented hops.

And I really think it's only vested interests keeps it that way.

I'd love to be able to say 'Try it, you might like it', but I think my critics might then accuse of me of using this blog to actively push 'hard drugs'!

So I'm not going to say that.

What I am going to ask you to do, is agree that people should be able to make their own minds up and each of us be allowed to find our own routes to happiness, as long as those routes don't trample over the routes of others.

The poll is in the sidebar.

Have your say!