Some time ago, when the culture within prisons was based on a tolerance of cannabis on the reasoning that "a stoned prisoner is a happy prisoner", I was a total dope monster.
Forget your pills, crack, coke or smack. None of them raise a scintilla of interest within me. But wave a spliff under my nose and I'm likely to follow you as if you were the Pied Piper.
It was an enormous blow to my leisure activities, then, when I suddenly developed some weird allergy to cannabis. I only had to take a miniscule amount and I'd be physically sick. This lasted for six very long months.
And I did what every self respecting pothead would have done. Make sure there was a mop and bucket handy, and just kept smoking!
This is so funny Ben, I am or I have been a pot head myself, so I know exactly what you mean about the pied piper!
ReplyDeleteThe allergy I developed wasn't physical with me, it was mental. The slightest smallest bit would send me into buckets of tears and shaking from anxiety.
Likewise I carried on until it really was too much and with some help from my friends I managed to jack it in.
I still get tempted with it but my friends don't want me to go back to it, and I would rather keep my friends than trade them for that ... stuff.
As a confirmed self respecting pothead, the thought of becoming allergic to cannabis is too awful to contemplate. Lol
ReplyDeleteI wonder if baking with it would work? May have to try that.......lmao
It is a great shame though, that because of the length of time cannabis stays in the body, and the problem of the "piss" test, heroin is now the drug of choice in prisons......
@queenie, Some people blame Ann widdecome for heroin being the drug of choice for prisoners, but i don't agree, no one is forced to take drugs in jail.
ReplyDeleteBefore i went to jail, i thought if someone wants to take drugs, that is there own private business, but now i have seen first hand all the misery it causes, families disown addicts, young kids in care, because mum/dad in jail (80%+ are there for either importation, or a crime to pay for a habbit. i could go on, but if anyone tells you how much fun drugs are, i can assure you there were no laughs at the 2 funerals i have been to, where 2 different friends have lost their childeren age 24 & 37 to overdoeses.
Some of my friends are addicts, in remission, and not bad people. My near neighbour is an addict, and intellegent man, but he says he has wasted his life, and most his friends are dead, he has been clean for 3 years in the last 20. Not many make old bones.
@ Anon 9.07am today
ReplyDeleteI sympathise with your experiences, and certainly would not wish heroin or any other drug addiction on anyone. My apologies if my, lighthearted, but factual comment offended you. More people leave prison with an addiction than go in. You are quite right when when you say no one is forced to take drugs, either in or out of prison, but the conditions our prisoners are kept in are extreme. It is no wonder they then find something to make life, to them, more bearable. They choose heroin because it is less easy to find in tests than cannabis!!
Many of you will think me very naive I know, but exactly how do prisoners get hold of heroin so easily? Every time I've been into prison as a social visitor I've been frisked and gone through the sniffer dogs. Urgent steps should be taken to stop it or at least reduce it drastically. I sympathise with you anon at 9.07am, I have a dear friend aged 28 who has been inside 8 times in as many years due to drug related crime. Heroin destroys lives and causes endless misery both for the user and their family/friends and yet there seems to be no proper rehab available in prison. Surely using this time of incarceration for therapeutic drug rehabilitation (rather than just dishing out substitutes with no additional help) would save millions of pounds in the long run, and more importantly of course, lives. As I say, it is common knowledge that prisoners are using heroin so why isn't something done about it? Any ex-prisoners/addicts I would really appreciate your input on this one (or prison staff of course!).
ReplyDelete@ queenie, No offence taken, i have been in a cell with someone i would rather not share with, so i do understand why you may just want to be out your nut. Don't ger me wrong, i have tried drugs myself, (not brown/heroin) Just saying there is a biggier picture here. And every single addict i have spoken to, always wishes they were clean. I have never ever met anyone who is glad to be an addict.
ReplyDelete@Jules, You would not belive the lengths some people go to get drugs. A days worth of drugs can be put into cling film, rolled flat, and with a stamp over the top, posted in on an envelope. A double flap can be made in an envelope, ditto. A tennis ball can be slit, filled with drugs and thrown over the wall. On visits, if strip searched, you cough, put in your mouth, then cough again, removing the wrap and putting in underwear. Officers bring some of it in, and about a million other ways, that would take me all night to type out.
@ Anon above, I am glad I have not offended, but just want to say I dont smoke cannabis to "get out of my nut", I smoke it to chillax lol.
ReplyDeleteI have had a few junkie friends over the years and I agree totally with you, none of them wanted to be an addict. Your comments about the methods drugs get into prisons are spot on, and someone, somewhere is making money out of the misery it creates. Wishing you peace x
Jules. It's all about staff corruption. Drugs can enter via visitors or being chucked over Walls but Only if staff choose to let it happen. Lots of screws get paid under £15k per year so are easy targets. Paying screws to turn a blind eye or to actually carry... Really it all amounts to the same thing. A prison system riddled with corruption.
ReplyDeleteThank you Anon and Jim for confirming what I suspected but why is it that this is allowed to continue?? What can be done?? Politicians and the prison system must be aware of this at the highest level and allow it to continue, it's scandalous. More convenient and less effort to turn a blind eye and maintain the status quo, it just goes to prove yet again how little most of them care about prisoner welfare, and how short-sighted they are when it comes to rehabilitation. All that hot air they waste opposing prisoner's votes and sounding righteous; I feel a letter or two coming on!!! (Apologies to all decent politicans and prison staff for my generalisations, but please DO SOMETHING).
ReplyDeleteI am more concerned that nothing is being done about the conditions prisoners have to endure, all the petty little indignities they suffer, the lack of resources to fulfil "rehabilitation courses", (which are a joke in themselves) sometimes, hundreds of miles away from their loved ones, I could go on. Rather than worry overmuch about how the drugs get in. While there is a demand there will always be a supplier!!.
ReplyDeleteI'm worried about prisoners who's lives have already been devastated by heroin addiction failing to get help in prison Queenie, and so end up coming back in time and time again! It's not about depriving them of their pleasures but getting their lives back on track, and it isn't to say that I'm not concerned about all the other indignities of which I'm well aware I can assure you. And I'm sorry, prisons ought to be able to cut off the source of supply, if they have a mind to, and treat addicts rather than continue to feed their self destructive habit.
ReplyDeleteThe prisons are in fact just mopping up the problem. I have to say they do detox you while you are in there, and you are tested for drugs on a regular basis. (out here, if you want to go to rehab, you are made to jump through hoops) unless you go private.
ReplyDeleteOne inmate i got talking to told me how she regularly got a free holiday, and £20k to bring back £1,000,000 worth of drugs, The customs were paid off, also £20k to let her through, so the mr big was still making a fortune, (everyone has a price). Another thing that happends, is someone is put on a flight with a large amount of drugs, then someone else, is offered a miniscule amount of money, about £500, to bring over a tiny amount of drugs, on the same flight. Some lacky of Mr Big will tip off customs about the person who has the small amount, and everyone is waiting for that person, meanwhile, the large amount sails through.
I know of one dealer round here who makes £4k A DAY, if it wasn't him, it would be someone else.
I don't take drugs, but if i did, i wouldn't take them in jail, as most problems are over not paying back enough etc. I don't know what the answer is, but with so much money involved, it is not a problem that will go away any time soon.
I had this idea : perhaps legalise all, issue ' drug licences' for pesonal use, if found misbehaving under influence, penalty points / fine administered. Costs built into purchase price. Doc on tv recently commented to the effect of "perhaps 7 out of 100 will have an unwanted reaction to cannabis, we're not at the stage where we can screen those predisposed in this way and forwarn/reject application for consumption...yet..." (not precise quote at all but i believe it reflects an interesting medical view)
ReplyDeleteI know i few that have used cannabis for years, had a frightening experience, then rejected consumption for themselves. Even under good ol' peer pressure.
There is nothing wrong with drugs.
The problem is the people who use them.
Addiction to fresh air, clean water and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables can't be bad.
@ Jules
ReplyDeleteMe too!!......and it has nothing to do with depriving anyone of pleasure, its about the discraceful situation in this Country. That there isnt a single major party willing to tackle the problems within our prisons, and CJ System, until that happens, rehabilitation in prisons, will continue to be a joke, and until there is real and comprehensive reform, as I said earlier, prisoners will look to drugs to cope, where there is a demand a supplier will always find his way in.