“It seems probable, in the light of reports which I shall refer to later, that coca, if used protractedly but in moderation, is not detrimental to the body.” – Sigmund Freud on the effects of Cocaine in his 1884 paper, Uber Coca.
“I know lots of people that take cocaine three nights a week and get up and go to work everyday, no problem at all.” – Lily Allen
Brit-Pop ne’er-do-well Lily Allen has taken a great deal of flack from the British Press for her devil-may-care attitude towards drug use in a rather candid interview with Word magazine. Among the many un-PC gems proffered by Ms. Allen were her contention that, “The only story is that drugs are bad and they will kill you – you will become a prostitute, a rapist or a dealer. But that’s not true” Allen also voiced her discontentment with the fact that record labels no longer provide their artists with complimentary snow at the Kraft service table, lamenting that, “Twenty years ago, I’d have been booked in at the Ritz with five grams of cocaine on my table.“
In response to these comments David Raynes, a member of the UK National Drug Prevention Alliance, chastised Allen, saying, “When someone like Lily Allen makes these remarks she is only harming young people who will at some point in their lives have to make a decision about taking drugs.” All of the public uproar surrounding her comments has led Allen to make a statement clarifying that she doesn’t condone drug use of any kind, a gesture that is most likely as hollow as a rolled up twenty pound note.
However, it seems to me that everyone who is all in a tizzy about Allen’s comments has missed the boat entirely. At no point in her interview, or at least in the portions of it that have thus far been leaked, does she condone snorting coke like a proper junkie. She simply doesn’t channel the spirit of Nancy Reagan and plead with the youth of Britain to “Just say no.” On “Alfie” from her debut record Alright, Still she belittles the stoner culture of slack singing, “Ooooo Alfie get up it’s a brand new day/ I just can’t sit back and watch you waste your life away/ You need to get a job because the bills need to get paid.” Allen’s point, in the song and in the interview, is that drug use isn’t a black and white matter, but like most things, must be viewed in grayscale. If you can use cocaine or weed with restraint like one would with a glass of Bordeaux with dinner, she seems to be saying, then more power to you.
Hey, Lily could be a lot worse off.
Now, if this line of reasoning still strikes you as being, well, unreasonable, then let me go to that old standby: juxtaposition. Lily Allen is not a strung-out crackhead desperately in need of in-patient rehab and a bath. That would be Amy Winehouse. Lily Allen hasn’t gotten knocked up twice and exhibited such abhorrent parenting skills as to lose primary custody to a white trash back-up dancer. That would be Britney Spears. Lily Allen hasn’t allegedly subsisted on a diet comprised solely of red peppers, cocaine, and milk. That was David Bowie during his Thin White Duke phase. Pop Music and copious drug use go together like Rob Blagojevich and bribery. To pick a fight with a musician for not calling cocaine the devil’s powder is just self-serving ego stroking by those who claim to be of sound moral character. When Lily Allen treating coke like it’s Sweet ‘N Low and begins popping Valium like they’re Pez, then you can get indignant and I’ll listen.
Just say no doesn’t work.
People will still do drugs.
We as a society are doing it all wrong.
It’s all about harm-reduction. Teaching people the TRUTH about drugs and how to safely use them instead of telling them lies.
To quote Thomas Jefferson, “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.”
Education is the key to everything.