I just can’t take HSE’s drugs guide seriously
THIS week I felt sympathy anew for the little nunneen whose unhappy duty it was to impart sex education in our convent school. Her lesson can be paraphrased as follows: ‘God… newlyweds… love… God… seed… babies... You there down the back, stop laughing.’ If you can imagine what it feels like to be a woman who knows nothing of sex and yet has to give instruction on the subject, then you’ll understand the HSE’s position this week, when it came out with an at-a-glance guide on how to get the best out of cocaine and crack.
The launch of the ‘Reduce the Harms’ campaign (and for the sake of accuracy I’m obliged to relay that odious use of the plural), was accompanied by the usual PR shot of choice, in which a group of people lifelessly hold up placards. This time it was Junior Health Minister Catherine Byrne along with Dr Eamon Keenan of the HSE and Tony Duffin of the Ana Liffey Drug Project. They all looked eminently respectable and, to their credit, as if they’ve never put anything stronger than a shot of Vick’s Nasal Spray up their noses.
There are two schools of thought on ‘harm reduction’ (and yes, the word ‘harm’ is perfectly intelligible in the singular), with opponents saying it normalises behaviour that should be discouraged, and proponents saying it saves lives. But we’ve come a long way since Nancy Reagan, and it’s now common practice in the social management of drug misuse.
THE HSE’s advice though, however wellintentioned, was of a nature to get people laughing down the back. And as with sex, about which teenagers pretend they know more than they do, so it is with drugs. Commenting on the launch, one newspaper columnist referred to the cocaine available around these parts as ‘what passes for cocaine in Ireland’, hinting that he used to get his direct from Escobar in the Eighties and wouldn’t touch the local stuff.
The HSE says to beware your source, in case you’re under the illusion that drug dealers are famous for their integrity. And remember that white powder could be anything, not necessarily cocaine. And don’t snort cocaine off toilet seats because, although you might not realise this, it’s possible toilet seats aren’t all that clean.
This all called to mind the tobacco warnings that began to appear in the 1970s and that seem comical by today’s standards, when it’s all graphic imagery of bluish cadavers.
Think along the lines of ‘Smoke fewer cigarettes; that way you’ll smoke less’, or ‘Don’t put the lit end in your mouth’. Sweden, for instance, used to warn, ‘Asbestos is especially dangerous to smokers. If you work in an environment with such pollution you should stop smoking’. Keep working with the asbestos though. Be grand.
‘Grind cocaine before snorting’, is the HSE’s advice, so as to remove any lumps or crystals and ‘ensure the powder is as fine as possible’. And don’t use bank notes but get your own clean paraphernalia such as a ‘metal tooter’, and don’t share your ‘tooter’ with anyone.
Being square, I did not know they were called tooters and I now suspect – cocaine being the reliable socioeconomic indicator that it is – that you can probably get tooters in rose-gold or platinum. But quick lexicology lesson aside, who doesn’t know this stuff? Surely it’s so selfevident that it can only be aimed at people who’ve never dreamt of taking cocaine?
WHAT’S more, the launch was accompanied by the information that cocaine nowadays is more readily available and purer than it’s been in a decade. You must admit this will come as interesting news to anyone who’s been thinking of trying it.
The advice concludes with a recommendation, if you’re worried about your cocaine use, to do an online self-assessment. It asks, ‘How often do you use drugs other than alcohol?’ (I’m not convinced of the wisdom of that ‘other than alcohol’ bit but that’s a whole other story.) Anyway, I answered ‘never’ and consequently was presented with a 40-second video informing me that I was ‘at low risk of developing problems from drug use as you are not currently using drugs’. You don’t say.