My Drugs Hell
On the day he went missing, his parents called the police and not much was done. The Chief Superintendent liked to be in charge of pretty much everything and he wasn’t around to make any decisions.
Two missing persons, then.
One was a small boy being held by a convicted and paroled paedophile who should have been closely monitored, but wasn’t.
Another was a Chief Superintendent who was banging a woman who wasn’t his wife in a lay-by, too busy to go into work.
An enquiry later that year pointed all fingers of blame in the direction of the Chief Superintendent. Who knew how long the boy had been held alive before his horrible death? Who knew why the police couldn’t suss out that a dangerous convicted paedophile living across from the playpark in question might be responsible? Who knew how much of the lack of action was because the boy was the son of a benefit financed council estate family who had a colourful reputation?
I was telling you about the Drug Awareness Mandatory Course. I promised you all I’d write about it.
You’re thinking that maybe I’m going to belittle the efforts of a hemp wearing Dudley-DoRight-Drugs-Action-Type-Guy, aren’t you? But I’m not. That might have at least been useful.
So anyway back to the Ex-Chief Superintendent. What do you do when you are forced, kicking and screaming, into early retirement by then First Minister, Donald Dewar, your reputation in tatters? Well, you write a book. Not about the little boy. No, you can’t touch that one. You look around you, you see how well that chap Mr Nice is doing with that drug trafficking book. So you write your own. Except this one is from the point of view of a law enforcer (kinda).
And then you get a nice little earner pontificating over a strung out two day (TWO day!) course lecturing educational professionals about the international drug trade. These educational professionals sit hoping to God that at one point the monologue will at least lead to some informed pointers on dealing with young people in their charge who may need help with drug addiction. It does not. It is like sitting in front of a 5 hour Party Political Broadcast. And then having to come back next week to do it all again.
So “Drug Awareness” it was called. Three months worth of lectures subjecting all employees to the course. Nice work, if you can get it. As a result, all teaching staff can tell you anything you want to know about the evil that is hash, cocaine and heroin. We know how it is made, where it is made and how illegal and nasty it all is.
What we can’t tell you is how to get help for any of our students who maybe having trouble with drugs or how to tell any of the signs of being under the influence in your classroom.
But let’s face it, they probably all live in council estates and are not to be bothered about anyway. Or possibly the self proclaimed expert on drug awareness has never met a junkie, or been any where near a drug rehabilitation centre in his puff.
Maybe instead of doing all those things he was banging some woman who wasn’t his wife in a lay by, being covertly photographed by the local papers….
