GO TO REHAB!

So Amy Winehouse joins the 27 Club: Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, all dead in their 27th year. All assured of posterity. All the more cooler for dying at 27…?

Sex, Drugs and Rock’n'Roll! Ya, baby! How is that not cool?!

Fucking mutts. We love their music, yes! But what fucking mutts.

Some feel that they have set the movement (of people who use drugs) back decades with their high profile addictions. That with Winehouse’s death, ANTI-drug slogans will be unearthed, dusted off, repainted, and brandished vigorously at of those of us who want a simpler approach to drugs.

Globally, we may say the war on drugs has failed, and that criminalizing drugs does not and will never work… try convincing our Ministry of Defence. But with Winehouse’s death the ministry is not what needs convincing. Her death, at the magical age of 27, refocused the world that knew (of) her on the detrimental effects of drugs (albeit determining cause of death will take a couple of weeks).

The premise: If Winehouse died of drug ABUSE as a result of her ADDICTION, surely every person that uses drugs is an ABUSER and ADDICT… is not difficult to believe, although far more difficult to prove.

Is it too simple a premise? Yes, far too simple! But who would deny that Winehouse was another HORRIFIC example of what drugs can do to talent and life?

The question remains though, whether such high profile deaths are reason enough to dismiss alternative approaches to drugs, that allows for the use of drugs by some people in much the way alcohol and tobacco is consumed by others?

Simply put, not everybody melts down like Winehouse (if indeed that was what it was).

But surely enough people react to drugs like she did? Surely there are countless, nameless examples of how drug ABUSE has shattered lives and torn apart communities?

Undeniably.

Is this reason enough though to reject outright the idea that drugs can be used by some without the expected spiral into mayhem? Is it not also undeniable that like alcohol, drugs have different effects on different people? Is it not also undeniable that some people can (and do) still use drugs and live productive fulfilling lives?

There is no easy answer to these questions. We have miles to go before we sleep on this. But we need to stay awake now, and examine these hard and difficult questions and make hard and difficult decisions.

No one is asking for the legalization of drugs. People react differently to Mary Jane. Some find her smoking hot. Some are disgusted by her and throw up all over their shoes. There are also extreme reactions which include paranoid schizophrenia: "Mary Jane doesn’t love ME anymore, she prefers fucking I!"

Legalized, the opportunities for these different reactions will increase, and perhaps, that fine line we walk will no longer be possible. Perhaps the negative reactions to Mary Jane will result in unwelcome scrutiny. The blind eye will not turn. The good eye will have a microscope strapped on. The Dangerous Drugs Control Board will find us, incarcerate us and bore us to death!

But that is not the question here. The question is what do we do about approaching the individuals that use drugs? Our one size fits all abstinence policy in Sri Lanka is laughable. The relapse rate is high. Data on relapse is therefore notably absent.

Do we leave people who use drugs alone?

“Leave us alone! We know what we’re doing. We understand our limits.”

The overriding need for man to gather into groups and societies won’t allow for us to be left alone. Nonconformity has always threatened society until society learnt to allow for nonconformity that conforms. To not conform to the nonconformity that society has so kindly granted us, is betrayal.

Yesterday, a man in one of the North East states of India was battered to death for trying to escape from his rehab by the local community. Not news really. Just another failed drug ADDICT who didn’t CONFORM - If you’re a drug ADDICT, fine! But, GO TO REHAB!

“They tried to make him go to rehab and he said, no, no, no… so they beat him to death”

Ya, well. Time to listen to her sing as we think this one over, and revalue our values.