Heroin

It is rare for me to criticise my peers in public.  We have enough enemies as it is; why give them more ammunition? And yet it would be dishonest of me to ignore the reality of heroin and its effects on prisoners.

As a hard-line libertarian, I defend every person's right to use or abuse their body in any way they choose.

Not that I understand some of these choices, least of all a decision to become enthralled by heroin.  We all know its effects - it can rapidly turn people into selfish, lying, thieving ratbags whose whole personality becomes an extension of finding the next bag of gear. I just don't see the attraction, but if that's a life someone opts for then good luck to them.

I may be indifferent to the corrosive effects heroin has on the individual, but I care deeply about the corrosive effects that heroin has on the prisoner society.

There is a myth that "back in the days" prisoners has a greater solidarity.  My view has been that such solidarity was sporadic and temporary.  Nevertheless, in whatever degree, solidarity existed.  And such solidarity, being feared by the Prison Service, was always under challenge.  In retrospect, we did not resist as well as we could have.

Challenges to prisoner solidarity from our keepers is to be expected.  But I argue that heroin has divisive effects upon every part of the prisoner society - from our economy to our friendships - and that this is a self-inflicted blow to our solidarity.  In a community where a significant number of its members are ruthlessly competing against each other for the next bag of smack, then the opportunities for organising around prisoner solidarity are greatly reduced.  This is my concern - that the personal choices to use heroin have effects far wider than the individual.

Not only does heroin corrode prisoner solidarity, it also plays into the hands of the system which takes every opportunity to degrade and disempower us.  Humiliating searches of our families on visits is the most obvious example.

The joys of heroin are lost on me, though they obviously exist for some.  Conversely, the effects of heroin on prisoner solidarity seem to me to be obvious and negative.

This is a tragedy.  Prisoners are in a good position to organise politically, economically and legally, yet many of us have chosen to take our eye off that ball - and fix our gaze on the next bag of smack instead.

Myths in the Making

I was going to entitle this piece "Oh, you LIAR!" but that just
becomes obvious as you read further...

Richard Littlejohn is one of the many commentators that the Daily Mail keeps under the stairs, ready to be wheeled out whenever some splenic verbosity is required. He has recently been doing a series, a large spread that could be entitled, "Woe is us, we are all going to the dogs, the End is Nigh, etc etc". You know the type, standard Daily Mail fare.

And it wouldn't occupy my attention accept for the fact that Littlejohn decided to dive into an exploration of human rights. This is complicated political and legal territory and Littlejohn did his research. Alas for scholarship, his research limited itself to reading his own newspaper...

And so he reiterates some blatant lies that the Mail peddled. Isn't it touching that a Mail columnist - in the full knowledge of the tripe he himself writes - actually believes that the rest of the paper is solid gold fact?

One such lie, a myth in the making, is that hundreds of prisoners were awarded compensation after being refused heroin. It speaks to the sanity of Mail readers that they could ever think this could be true, but there you are. The case in question was actually about de-toxing from heroin. In the community, detox via the NHS is supported with a regimen of drugs which lessen the pains of the process. But in prisons, this support was absent, forcing the detoxers to suffer. The compensation came about because of this inexplicable disparity in treatment, which led to their being caused unnecessary suffering. Feel free to object to that, as you please, but it had bugger all to do with being refused heroin.

His whole diatribe is littered with these lies, rehashed from 'news' reports printed in the Mail. I could list a dozen others, patiently disassembling them for our joint amusement. But that would be to over-egg the pudding. You get the point - the Daily Mail prints lies like they are going out of fashion and Richard Littlejohn is either a lazy, incompetent journalist or a barefaced liar. Nothing you didn't know...

Military Drug Smiggling

When a bunch of SBS guys got busted smuggling a boat load of drugs in the late 1990's, you'd think that it would be a massive story. After all, these are the fellows who do an awful lot of counter-terrorism work, guard North Sea oil rigs and escort nuclear weapons.

So when three of them arrived, on remand, in Bristol nick there was quite a stir. Turns out that they sent their mates in the SBS who weren't smuggling to go and arrest them.

On arrival they were classified as Category -A, the highest security category, reserved for those whose escape must be made impossible due to the risk they pose to the public or the State. Cat-A's are personally escorted everywhere in the prison by screws and dogs.

So it was a bit of a surprise to be sitting in my room in the Education building and have a screw stick his head through the door. "Anyone seen a Cat-A...?" There was only one corridor and five rooms in the building, and this idiot had lost tabs on his prisoner. He was found browsing the Library.

These criminal geniuses were acquitted. They were charged with conspiring to import drugs into the UK. But their boat was stopped as it approached the Channel and they advanced the defence that they were actually going to Holland. Clever!

What still amazes me is how little media attention there was on this episode. Let's hope that drug smuggling is out of fashion with Special Forces these days, particularly given their theatre of action is now the worlds centre for heroin production.