RE: Prostitute Murders
Hi Crystaltherapy,
I too was a supporter and briefly a member of the Labour Party back in the 1970's / 1980's. At that time Labour represented the organised working class. Labour Party policy on illegal drugs was always one of prohibition.
In any of the factories that I worked in no one would countenance the idea of drug taking. People would be horrified if anyone among them admitted to using drugs.
Times have changed and the Labour Party no longer represents the working class. The factories that I worked in when I left school are no longer there and drugs are endemic among working class youth.
New Labour represents a new liberal elite. A liberal elite that is as soft on drugs as it is on crime. The truth is that Labour would love to decriminalise drugs and prostitution but thankfully will not do so if it feels that the opposition ( and I don't mean the spineless excuse for a Conservative Party ) is too strong.
I can appreciate that you are widely read on the subject of decriminalisation . I am just rather skeptical about the supposed benefits that are claimed for it. In this country we seem to vilify the pushers but treat the users as victims. This is why criminalisation in this country is one sided and doesn't work.
Pedophiles who download images of child porn are not treated as victims of the people who make them. The only victims are the children involved in making the images. We should treat drug users the same. Ensure that rehabilitation is part of the consequences of purchasing or attempting to purchase drugs. Also ruthlessly pursue the pushers.
I don't think that this would eradicate drug use but it would minimise it and I think that is all we can do as a society. If the war on drugs really was fought as a war then I think that society would win it.
Dunkirk.
RE: Prostitute Murders
ORIGINAL: Dunkirk
If the war on drugs really was fought as a war then I think that society would win it.
It's hard to know TBH, but that's one point I'd make - give it a go, at least.
As an aside, I never went in there (I ran out of time and had no huge interest), but Copenhagen has for donkey's years had an area where drugs of all kinds are decriminalised. During hippie times it just kind of appeared, I'm told, and a tacit agreement had it then and still does, that the police just don't go in. But this means that it's ruled by gangs such as Danish Hell's Angels, I'm tld, so you takes yer choice. 😮
RE: Prostitute Murders
Hi ‘V’
I just saw this and will try and answer your points pal, although it’s a little disjointed. Forgive me if I don’t go into detail but I have a houseful and will have until about January 5th (And I’m cooking again today – thankfully only for 8 tonight) Anyway -
ORIGINAL: venetian
A year later I found myself in Edinburgh for two years, where the sudden onset of heroin, then, had upped the crime rate 4-fold, and a taxi would hardly stop for you, as they were likely to get knifed - a situation they'd never dreamed of, and for the first time the driver had to be partitioned off. IMO there's a role to play in keeping something which is highly addictive, destroys and kills lives, and sends the crime rate off the chart (including prostitutes) under as much control as possible.
The criminal activity you talk about – is fuelled because the drugs are criminalized… yet we can drink ourselves stupid. However, you don’t see old ladies robbed & being beaten to death just so their attacker can get a hit of ‘Jack Daniels’ @ £40 a shot? – It’s a no brainer ‘V’ – I’m not saying “no law” I’m saying “no burying your head in the sand”
ORIGINAL: venetian
You name the famed names? Er ... Hendrix died by drowning in his own vomit (how artistic, how wonderful);
Yeah, don’t wanna blow yer theory – but booze is usually the culprit in that death scenario… anyway what’s your point, do you think ‘non drug takers’ – die beautifully dignified? Do you honestly think great men don’t die with fear in their eyes and their own excrement spread across their sheets?
ORIGINAL: venetian
Barrett was largely sent to mental hell by LSD and so didn't become a further talent but disappeared for the rest of his wholelife;
Err I was talking about Elizabeth [:-]
ORIGINAL: venetian
Marley probably would done a lot better if he'd had a brain that functioned more clearly later on in life;
Is that right? Considering I have everything Marley ever did – I can’t tell you how let down and disappointed I now feel about the music that I once thought was brilliant
PS. He died from playing football bruv 😉
ORIGINAL: venetian
Lennon probably manslaughtered the famed fifth Beatle and his best friend because he kicked the head in ofStuart Sutcliffewhile drunk, leading toSutcliffe's "natural death" a few days later when he staggered, ill, back to the UK,of a brainhemmorage according to recent research
Yeah Booze again ‘V’… not heroin
ORIGINAL: venetian
... you are quite right - "the list goes on- Joplin and gawd knows(very much, including into the unknown people of this world).
Soz mate, I never mentioned Joplin
ORIGINAL: venetian
Drugs helped their art, huh?
With all respect ‘V’ who exactly are you to say it didn’t? - there is no "art yardstick" bruv!
When most of em (to me) clearly wrote
RE: Prostitute Murders
I was thinking about what made me want to post the lyrics to "Jane Says" - so while the rice wasstreaming I played the album and surfed a little - I found this onJane Bainter who is the "Jane" in 'Jane Says' @ [link= http://members.cox.net/g12241/songs/janearticle.html ] http://members.cox.net/g12241/songs/janearticle.html [/link]
excerpt: -
"For some people, it's the portrait of Jane that makes the song repeatably listenable. "Everybody's been in a relationship with a guy who doesn't treat them right," says Kiersten Johnson, a 28-year-old demographer in Silver Spring. "And there's that line about how she doesn't know what love is, but she can always tell if a guy wants her. A lot of women understand that. It's easy to tell if a guy is interested, but a lot harder to know if it has anything to do with love."
Jane Bainter, now 38, appreciates how beloved her namesake melody has become. More than a few people have gushed to her about the song, not realizing that she'd inspired it.
"I've heard about students getting writing assignments in class to write about 'Jane Says,' " Bainter says. "Generally, I haven't told many people that I'm that Jane. It's a little awkward. It's a hard life being an addict, and it feels now like the song is about another person. It's not something I've really spoken about much."
Bainter didn't plan on becoming one of pop's most sung-about women when she moved to L.A. in the mid-'80s. A native of Arizona, she'd graduated from Smith College and moved into a group house on Wilton Street, a Victorian crammed with nearly a dozen musicians. Farrell was one of them; together with Eric Avery, another Wilton house resident, a band emerged. Bainter was the house's most mercurial presence; her habit brought some unsavory characters around, and a former boyfriend of hers was living under the same roof, which only made the situation more volatile.
"She's really intelligent and full of drama, and everybody on this planet who's met her loves her," says Casey Niccoli, a former Wilton roommate. "But she was bringing around bad people, drug dealers. People who stole."
When things went wrong at the house, the mayhem was often blamed on "Jane's addiction," so when Farrell needed a name for his band, there was a ready-made phrase in his head. "They jumped into my room one day and said, 'We're going to name it Jane's Addiction! ' " Bainter recalls. "I thought it was sort of a lackluster name. I didn't take it as a tribute at all."
Nor did her parents. Bainter's photo appeared on the insert of the vinyl version of the first Jane's album, and on thousands of posters that appeared all over the world. "It was very hard for my family," she says. At the time, she was leading a double life of sorts. By day, she'd put on a sensible suit and work at a management consulting firm in Century City. At night she'd put on a wig and wade into L.A.'s music subculture. And she was nearly always high.
"No one
RE: Prostitute Murders
Hi Roger,
[Am working on a wierd PC: you can't trust the formatting you see on the screen so mine may follow yours? But I won't know.]
I saw the post with the view of legalising drugs (all?) and went "Whoa"! I'm of an opposite persuasion so far in life. However I was using your post as a jumping-off point for discussing the subject generally.
ORIGINAL: Conspiritualist
The criminal activity you talk about is fuelled because the drugs are criminalized yet we can drink ourselves stupid. However, you don't see old ladies robbed & being beaten to death just so their attacker can get a hit of 'Jack Daniels' @ £40 a shot? It's a no brainer 'V'
There's crime galore in many places I know, fuelled by drink, which increses as consumption increases. Apparently the need for these 40 new (I can't believe they've called it this) "Respect" zones is largely drink-fuelled.
anyway what's your point, do you think 'non drug takers' die beautifully dignified?
I was thinking of that famed period of the multiple deaths, and that rock stars had to learn pretty quick circa 1970 that to have a career of any length it was a good idea to try to stop or slow down.
Err I was talking about Elizabeth [:-]
😀OK. However, Syd is very recent so more relevant, or equally so?
Soz mate, I never mentioned Joplin
Precisely. I was saying that the list goes on.
When most of em (to me) clearly wrote some of their best stuff under the influence
On the other hand, so many of us thought we'd done a masterpiece of music ... until we heard it in our more clear-hearing mind. [&:]
But isn't it interesting that he wasn't writing or performing when he was taking two 'legal' substances Methadone and Vodka?
C'mon Roger. Many would say he was burned out by it all and needed some years to get straight - from the 60s.
Again with due respect 'V' You do know who kicked all that off & encouraged these and other north-western Asian lands
The history isn't relevant to prostitutes in Ipswich and elsewhere. What's relevant to them is just what drugs such as heroin do, their addictiveness, and the need for money it
RE: Prostitute Murders
Hi,
A number of contributers to this thread have alluded to legal consumption of alcohol being as bad, if not worse than the illegal use of drugs. In my opinion this is a false comparison.
Although some people drink in order to get drunk most people do not. A couple of glasses of wine with a meal or a couple of beers while watching football is something most people can do without any ill effects.
No one ever smokes cannabis or snorts cocaine for the taste. Everyone does it to become intoxicated.
Dunkirk
RE: Prostitute Murders
ORIGINAL: Dunkirk
Hi,
A number of contributers to this thread have alluded to legal consumption of alcohol being as bad, if not worse than the illegal use of drugs. In my opinion this is a false comparison.
Although some people drink in order to get drunk most people do not. A couple of glasses of wine with a meal or a couple of beers while watching football is something most people can do without any ill effects.
No one ever smokes cannabis or snorts cocaine for the taste. Everyone does it to become intoxicated.
Dunkirk
alcohol (and cigarettes for that matter) are legal cos they bring in huge revenue to the government. they'd make cannabis legal too if they could get away with it... huge tax revenue again for them.
but, dunkirk, a couple of beers or a couple of glasses of wine, very pleasant taste, yes, but also intoxicating... which is what most people having those couple of glasses or beers want... that slight "click", or why not just have the non alcolholic equivalents? are you saying that anyone that has a couple of bevvies are just doing it for the taste? surely not!
those that spliff, would say they enjoy the taste... and even those that partake of a line of coke probably would say they enjoy the taking (taste if you like) as much as the effect.
this is getting off topic (not that i mind) but i am sure many that have a smoke or a "toot" are not addicted and just enjoy its effects as much as you enjoy those few beers watching a game.
RE: Prostitute Murders
Rosie hits on a point that, while off the original topic, seems to be where we've been going indeed.
Oh, wouldn't large factions of the government love to legalise cannabis, heroin, and other things! Imagine the taxation revenue: it would be so huge as to take us much further into the police state debated on other threads. Their control over us would be all the greater ... and they'd make sure that many more people get hooked on hard drugs, I'd imagine. It would come down not to a lack of control over our lives, but to control. Why, the 'powers that be' would be the breast upon which even more millions of people would rely for this or that chemical fix, able to set the taxation rate, and so forth. (So heroin would in no way end up as cheap on the streets, if legal, as posts above suggest.)
Another step into Orwellian life, surely? So IMO, in this sense, the police on the matter of drugs, at least,are not a tool of the 'powers' but are protecting us from greater reliance upon Big Brother. Along with such things as surveillance, Big Brother depends upon chemical control.
V
RE: Prostitute Murders
I wasnt trying to make comparisons, I was trying to state a point as I see it, particularly in my line of work. Alcohol causes misery please believe me. There are kids as young as 9 being admitted to hospital with acute alcoholic poisoning, young people are drinking younger and younger.
There are certain drinks targeted to under age kids, whether they can get served booze is another point altogether. Look at your bacardi breezers, hooch, MD 20/20. The marketing people know what they are doing. Alcohol is basically a poison, when we drink we are putting our liver at risk. Ever watched the programme booze britain, where cameras follow people on a night out and also watch the emergency services deal with the resulting mess? Not pretty.
The point is basically, other substances are illegal simply because the powers that be choose to make them so.
We are also a country that has addicts reliant on methadone. Why? There is simply no need. Someone can detox from 100mls of methadone to zero in 2 weeks, its easily done, its the head stuff that takes longer, dealing with cravings and relapse. Methadone keeps a lot of drug companies very very rich and very very happy.
The bottom line is, I could go on all day about what I think and these are just my views but?
1 As long as there are people who use drugs and need money for a fix, they will try and get money to get that fix, one of these avenues will be selling sex.
2 People are going to continued to be murdered on the streets selling sex.
I think in the UK we areguilty of taking a stick the head in the sand stance and lets forget about it and hope that it goes away. The fact is, large numbers of people are abusing drugs every year. Drugs are freely available in prisons, lets not forget. The treatment service is fragmented, with services being available depending on postcodes, funding etc.So do we take a hard line stance, jail all the dealers, lock up all the prostitutes. Fact is, as I already said, the streets of Britain are awash with drugs, get rid of one dealer, another one pops up to take his place, one prostitute dies, someone else gets a drug habit and sells sex to feed it.
We are in never ending cycle of despair and there have to be alternatives to the culture we are living in at the moment.
Look at ASBOS. They arent working, people are wearing them like a badge. Sorry but hardline Blair and his policies dont do it for me.
As I said in another post, smoking cannabis to many young people is nothing, drugs are not shocking to them, even pictures of people on their death beds wont stop future generations using drugs.
RE: Prostitute Murders
Crystaltherapy
I wasnt trying to make comparisons, I was trying to state a point as I see it, particularly in my line of work. Alcohol causes misery please believe me. There are kids as young as 9 being admitted to hospital with acute alcoholic poisoning, young people are drinking younger and younger.
There are certain drinks targeted to under age kids, whether they can get served booze is another point altogether. Look at your bacardi breezers, hooch, MD 20/20. The marketing people know what they are doing. Alcohol is basically a poison, when we drink we are putting our liver at risk. Ever watched the programme booze britain, where cameras follow people on a night out and also watch the emergency services deal with the resulting mess? Not pretty.
The point is basically, other substances are illegal simply because the powers that be choose to make them so.
I'm certainly not trying to make a case for alcohol. The present government has lifted restrictions on the sale of alcohol in terms of the length of time a pub can stay open for. The motivating factor was that people rushed to drink up at 11:00 pm and all came out of the pub together and caused a nuisance. Now people can cause a nuisance for much longer than they ever did before.
A political party that uses as a slogan " who gives a xxxx for closing time" at the last election which it targeted at 18 - 25 year olds is obviously unconcerned about the consequences of increased alcohol consumption. That drinks companies are marketing their products to younger teenagers is disgraceful, but the government's actions hardly set an example.
Crystaltherapy
1 As long as there are people who use drugs and need money for a fix, they will try and get money to get that fix, one of these avenues will be selling sex.
2 People are going to continued to be murdered on the streets selling sex.
I think that drugs and prostitution are evils that will always be with us. To oppose decriminalisation is not a head in the sand attitude. It is opposition to a policy that I believe will lead to an increase in a lifestyle that causes misery to the most vulnerable in society.
Many of the reasons that you state for the weakness of prohibition are weaknesses of the prison system for not ruthlessly pursuing a no drugs in prison policy or the Police for turning a blind eye to dealers and suppliers. You sited customs and excise for failing to stop drugs entering the country.
As I stated in an earlier post, rather than treat drug users as victims of a medical problem treat them as people who have broken the law. Labour wouldn't even have to bring a new law in ( their favorite pastime ) because illegal substances are against the law, which is why they are illegal.
An alternative to a custodial sentence would be to embark on a rehab programme. This approach would at least minimise the problem of drugs. It would also re-enforce the anti-drugs message from parents and teachers that is so undermined by all the liberal stuff we are fed these days.
The Swedish approach to prostitution has reduced the number of prostitutes and the people trafficking that often goes with it.
The Law exists to protect the people not the interests of some liberal elite who enjoy the odd spliff or line of coke. We have to insist that the Police do not abandon the estates and inner cities to drug dealers, pimps and kerb crawlers. Law abiding citizenship, morality and decency doesn't respect race, class or status, it exists in Toxteth, Brixton and Hartcliff as well as Notting Hill, Henly and Wokingham. The Law should be on the side of the Law ab
RE: Prostitute Murders
You have made some valid points, however, I will say this. People will not go through rehab and out the other end unless they are ready and want to do it. I have seen this countless times. Someone might go to rehab 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 times and fail and on the 7th something will click and they wont relapse.
Detoxing from a drug physically is easy, I dont mean by that that people wont go through horrible withdrawals, they may but you can come off drugs in 48 hours.
What scares people about being drug free is perhaps the lifestyle adjustments, not the detox. Having to cut yourself off from friends and family, partners perhaps who are still using. Moving city perhaps, having to change your whole lifestyle. Sounds easy as there is a drug free lifestyle awaiting you at the end of it, but its not in real terms. We could cram the prisons full of drug users but as you said, we need to stop drugs being readily available in prisons.
Also, you could fill rehabs with drug users 1000 times over, there are just not enough services out there.
I am not for decriminalisation because I dont like this Goverment and their polices, I dont, but I spent a long time researching and reading as part of my degree and basically on the sliding scale from enforcement to tolerance there are other options and options that seem to be working better for other countries who have better control of the drugs issue and are more in touch with their drug using population.
The reason that cannabis was decriminalised in the Netherlands in the first place was so that the police could take soft drugs out of the equation to some extent and deal with people dealing harder drugs.
The drug tourist issue in the Netherlands is also going to stop, only people resident in the country will be able to use cannabis in the coffee shops due to the influx of tourists causing problems
I dont think we will ever go down that route here, no matter what Goverment is in power. The point that I would also like to make is that the Labour Party spent long enough in opposition to form a realistic drugs policy and strategy that worked and 10 years on, they still dont have a handle on it.
Drug treatment and testing orders only work if people have the will and the motivation to see them through. Why do charities staff rehabs, why not the Goverment who can spend millions on other things. The Government should be funding treatments and rehabs, in general they dont.
People die while waiting for spaces to become available.
RE: Prostitute Murders
The thread may appear to be off the subject of the murdered prostitutes, but IMO it isn't. They were on the streets for a reason, so substances are well-worth addressing here. (Just when people have had the most as at any time of year!?)
Just to reply to Dunkirk,
ORIGINAL: Dunkirk
I'm certainly not trying to make a case for alcohol. The present government has lifted restrictions on the sale of alcohol in terms of the length of time a pub can stay open for.
I agree. And it was made pretty obvious even in mainstream media who really wanted that. The drug companies - who just happen to be legal, since they sell alcohol. They bought the government, as has been reported. That's what will happen with any addictive substance.
Who, at the time of birth, needs tobacco? Basically no-one. But the image and culture is built up, young people still get addicted to it, money just floods into government coffers (though it floods back out to treat the subsequent illnesses), and according to research, smoking cuts ten years off anyone's life. But I do know, from what people research and tell me, and from observation, that it's very hard to give up.
So on the subject of legalisation - sorry, I mean"decriminalisation" - just suppose we had a world where tobacco wasn't legal. Would so many people have started smoking and gotten addicted to it, thus losing ten years of theirlife on average? Clearly not. I'd say tobacco is the same as anything else: take a look at what it does to lives, because it is legal and so readily available.
[It would be nice to see government deal with the nation lacking income from alcohol and tobacco taxes too. But in fact they'd do just fine, as the nation would be immensely more healthy.]
A political party that uses as a slogan " who gives a xxxx for closing time" at the last election which it targeted at 18 - 25 year olds is obviously unconcerned about the consequences of increased alcohol consumption.
Yes, and down the timeline I'd say the same would happen with any illegal substance made legal. That's the genii in the bottle, best kept within the bottle.
I think that drugs and prostitution are evils that will always be with us.
I may be totally alone here on this, but HP has its spiritual side and forums, right? There, we talk of the New Age and of a coming Golden Age. This is another reason why I oppose the legalisation of addictive drugs. I happen to believe utterly in all that. In any future ultra-spiritual age, people won't get drunk once a week (or ever), and they certainly won't be addicts to substances. Humanity will be a notch higher.
Now, I agree that 90 percent of that effort must come from within and from free will. But increasing trash-drugs on the streets will not help, and would hinder or halt the possibility for all that. The legalisation of trash, addictive drugs is anti- the concept of a coming Golden Age which many do believe in.
That, essentially, is where I am coming from. Spliff, heroin, and all the rest have no place in the future world I and many others envisage - so why let the genii out of the bottle on those now if it's only going to have to be closed again for sure?
The Swedish approach to prostitution has reduced the number of prostitutes and the people trafficking that often goes with it.
Sweden has possibly a unique, or at least rare, approach to alcohol too, which IMO is worth noting. You get coupons or vouchers, and can't buy more
RE: Prostitute Murders
If defacto decriminalisation enabled police forces to target those who were peddling harder drugs then for one I would be all for it.
I would doubt very much whether any of the women had an addiction to cannabis, I am presuming and only presuming that heroin was the drug that they were selling their bodies to pay for.
I have worked in supported housing for a very long time and been an addiction worker 2 years, however what drove me to get that addiction qualification was working in a homeless unit with young people who we were supposed to be assessing for housing, yet at that time, 9 out of every 10 referrals was for someone who had a previous or current heroin addiction.
We were not the resource for them but who was? Rehab yes, but with 200 people chasing every space they had to be accommodated somewhere.
We had rules that stated young people could be evicted for substance use yet we accommodated people who were known heroin users????? That was simply the way it was.
We couldnt support them to get housing because 9 times out of 10, by the time they should have been ready they were long gone, one way or another.
In some instances dead. I was reading the Daily Record about 4 years ago and there were a list of all the drug deaths that year. 2 of the names stood out, both young people I had known and worked with.
When a substance was found on the premises, eg cannabis, we had our own polices for dealing with it, however, when it came to disposing of that substance, believe me, there were many grey areas.
The police did not want to be bothered by us wasting their time to come out and uplift a lump of hash, far less prosecute someone for it and I am not saying that because I simply didnt call them and flushed the hash down the loo.
This was advice given to us from police officers. So, if the way to go is to deal with people through the criminal justice system, I would need to say from my own experience is that police in general have better things to do with their time than prosecute someone for using cannabis for personal use.
People have been using substances since time began and in the middle of all the negatives, there are people who use drugs and like it.
There was a study done in Glasgow over a 10 year period which had to fight to be published, a number of people were tracked and monitored, they were middle class professionals in the main and all of them were heroin users. This study found that the use of the drug did not interfere with their lives, they were able to hold down a job etc.
However, I would doubt very much whether these same people had to sell their bodies to survive, or shoplift, but the point is, if we take the results as read, there are probably thousands of people in the UK with a drug habit that we dont see because they dont end up a statistic, whatever that statistic may be.
Legalisation and decriminalisation of a substance are very different things, at the end of the day choice and peer pressure do come into it, but not everyone has a support network that enables them to steer away from choosing to take a substance in the first place.
If I had a choice of decriminalising cannabis in a controlled manner as they do in the Netherlands to allow resources to be diverted into fighting those who push harder drugs I would choose that, thats not to say I would choose to take the drug itself, as that is my choice.
I will also say this, I would be very naive if I didnt think that some people who counsel others on addictive substances might not use cannabis and other substances themselves, I am sure they do, indeed I know people who do so. I drink but not to excess and I dont use other drugs but I know people who do. Again that is a matter of personal choice.
People use alcohol, drugs and tobacco, in my opinion they will always use alcohol, drugs and tobacco.
There are no easy answers to this one but those girls deaths shouldnt have been in vain, something needs to be done to ensure that people who do work the streets for whatever reason are safe.
RE: Prostitute Murders
ORIGINAL: crystaltherapy
People use alcohol, drugs and tobacco, in my opinion they will always use alcohol, drugs and tobacco.
Hi crystaltherapy. Within the context of "Current Affairs", and that's the part of the HP forums this is, I agree with you.
But on the larger scale it's a New Age healing and spiritual set of forums, and in that respect I'm taking the long-term view of the future of humanity that individuals so far in this world don't 'get'. There's a belief-system that the world is going to change. So - it's a cliche that these things "will always be with us" - certainly including prostitution too. However outside of Current Affairs and taking a longer-term spiritual view I'd always disagree TBH.
An ant would say, "This house has always existed, and always will." But in fact the house it nests in may only be a century old and may be demolished in a decade from now. But the ant doesn't know that. Likewise we don't need to take an ant view as to the long-term. Things can change - utterly. Goodness, even in the early 1970s, about 35 years ago, I had favourite groups, such as coming out of Findhorn, who believed that the world will change.
But there's no proof anyone can give for that - it's a faith. And certainly in the meantime practical measures do have to be used for present practical problems, yes. I try to see both perspectives at once. It's like watching where your putting your feet, but also know you are walking fifty miles. 🙂
V
RE: Prostitute Murders
Well as an addiction worker who works within a homeless project I would love to be made unemployed due to the fact that no one needed the help of myself or of my colleagues, unfortunately I think I will be working until I retire.
I have a spritual side, I am a reiki Master and qualified in several therapies, I also have beliefs, not religious but personal to me.
If I got to the stage that I thought my drinking was becoming an issue I would stop it, I dont do drugs, neither do I smoke.
Unfortunately as long as there are drugs to be purchased people will buy them, as long as people need to fund a habit, they will work the streets, as long as people make money and sometimes serious money from dealing they will deal.
Look at the situation in Glasgow lately, where 3 members of the same family were shot, the father was a youth worker and the community had been trying to get his centres funding stopped for years due to alleged criminal dealings.
Was the funding stopped. Yes but only after that shooting incident. We must not underestimate the power of criminal behaviour, as I said earlier, I know of families in my home and work towns that are basically bulletproof.
It saddens me greatly.