Tried that

I was never seriously attracted to leisure drugs (dope, cocaine etc). I always wanted to be my natural self without my mind being subject to artificial alterations.

When I was young, when other people were praising the joys of whatever drug they had just discovered, I would wonder why they were so desperate to escape their everyday reality for hours on end.

Yes, reality can be pretty grim, but I never had the wish to escape from it. I wanted to experience it and deal with it, however difficult it might be. Drugs seemed not so much an escape as running away.

I did try dope twice, and LSD twice, but they didn't do anything for me. As a result, I was put off drugs for good.

Apart from anything else, you don't know exactly what's being handed to you. The content of the drugs isn't verified and depending what's in them, they could be lethal. There are plenty of grieving parents out there wishing their dead daughter or dead son had never been tempted by someone's chance offering.

The only drugs I favour come over the pharmacy counter.

All about Keef

Having just finished Keith Richards' massive memoir "Life", I have to conclude he's a pretty unlikable character. He may be a brilliant musician, but the way he treats other people leaves a lot to be desired. I'm amazed at the self-indulgence and self-centredness and rampant misogyny.

He takes for granted that as a global celebrity he should be waited on hand and foot, and he doesn't seem very grateful for all that hidden support.

Domestic staff like cleaners, cooks and chauffeurs are barely mentioned, except the one occasion where the cook accidentally blows up the kitchen.

Women are mainly servants and sex objects, usually referred to as bitches, chicks, brassy matrons or groupies. He shags every woman who looks willing and relies on the groupies to keep him fed, do his washing and generally look after him.

He is (or was) a hardened druggie, who takes every substance going and regularly has to go cold turkey to keep himself fit enough to do the job. Considering he was almost permanently stoned, it's amazing how much of his life he actually remembers.

He says virtually nothing about his children (Marlon, Alexandra, Angela, Theodora and Tara*), as if he had little to do with them, but maybe he just didn't want them to have too much public attention. He mentions Marlon a few times, but clearly Marlon was mostly brought up by other people (and he really objected to his father's behaviour).

He obviously doesn't care that he's a role model for thousands of young males, many of whom will copy his selfish and irresponsible attitudes. As long as he's doing his hedonistic thing, that's all that matters. It's as if he's never grown out of the hippie lifestyle of the late nineteen sixties - sex, drugs and admiring chicks.

It would be interesting to know how his friends and acquaintances and staff see him and whether they think of him as a royal pain in the arse or a lovable rogue.

*Tara died aged two months - a cot death

Bad habits

The journalist Virginia Ironside doesn't see why old age should mean kicking bad habits and taking up healthier ones. If you're going to die soon anyway, what does it matter if a bad habit might take a year or two off your life?

At the age of 75, she still smokes and drinks, she loves butter and cream, she takes strong painkillers against the doctor's advice, and in general she scoffs at health warnings.

I both agree and disagree. I agree that slavishly adopting healthier habits in order to live slightly longer is a bit pointless. Especially if the habits in question really go against the grain. But I also disagree because if your bad habits make you ill, then someone else has to step in and make you healthy again - if they can. Why should other people be burdened with that?

Not that it's a big issue in my case, because I've never had any bad habits to speak of. Perhaps I should be adopting a few rather than avoiding them. Would life be more fun, I wonder?

The fact is I've never smoked, I seldom drink more than one glass of wine, I've only taken "fun drugs" like marijuana and LSD on four occasions, I don't eat anything with too much salt, sugar or fat, I eat very little chocolate, and I don't spend all day on the sofa. I don't find any of this abstinence tiresome or alien, it all comes quite naturally and has done for decades.

But as Kingsley Amis once said "No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home." So if you're prone to dangerous habits, why not carry on with them and to hell with the consequences?

Well, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. So I'm unlikely to be stuffing myself with booze, drugs or double cream any time soon.

A tragic decline

I'm fascinated by those celebrities who seem set for a glittering career and then fall into a steady decline, eaten away by addictions, self-doubt, destructive friends and spouses, and the relentless pressures of fame.

I was reading about the new documentary on Whitney Houston, and the recollections of her bodyguard, David Roberts, who thinks she could have survived if those around her had been less intent on exploiting her fame and more concerned with her personal health and well-being.

As soon as he met her new boyfriend, the rapper Bobby Brown, on her 26th birthday, he suspected Brown would be a bad influence on her. He soon discovered he was verbally and physically abusive, jealous of her success, an attention-seeker, a trouble-maker, a heavy drug-user, and a womaniser.

He couldn't understand why she always indulged him and overlooked his immature behaviour, why she crushed her own personality to make him feel comfortable, why she was besotted with someone who was obviously no good for her.

In particular, he's disgusted with all the people in her entourage who were more interested in her profitability than protecting her health and keeping her from self-destruction.

"She became a commodity, a possession, a tool for making money" he says. When he wrote to her lawyers outlining his concerns, he was sacked, and never spoke to her again.

Her story has many similarities with the life of Amy Winehouse, whose promising career was also undermined by an equally unsuitable boyfriend, Blake Fielder-Civil, a growing drugs habit, the stresses of fame, and a money-obsessed entourage.

On February 11, 2012, at the age of 48, Whitney Houston was found dead, the result of drowning, heart disease and cocaine use. "So many people could have done so much to avoid that" says David Roberts. "They didn't. They abdicated responsibility in favour of greed."

Pic: David Roberts

Count me out

When it comes to wild partying, I was always old before my time. I never quite saw the attraction, even as a rebellious teenager who was pretty wild in other ways.

I had a friend who would drag me along to these all-night parties in trendy Notting Hill. We would be there till the small hours, he enjoying himself immensely, me getting more and more bored and longing for my warm, cosy bed.

Everyone else would be getting sky-high on drugs or booze and raving about the latest fashionable gurus (R D Laing, Tim Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Huey Newton, Germaine Greer, Valerie Solanas). I wasn't keen on either mind-bending substances or personality cults so I felt a bit out of the loop. I would have preferred a searching one-to-one conversation to a roomful of lazy name-droppers so I was forever frustrated. I felt like a 70-year-old grandad who'd somehow stumbled into a kids' party.

Funny, because the rest of the time I was an instinctive rebel, disputing anything and everything from news values and dress codes at the local newspaper I worked for, to prejudice about gays, women, socialists and modern art, to parking restrictions and speed limits. There was virtually nothing I would happily accept, nothing I wouldn't promptly question and challenge and argue with. I drove my parents crazy with my endless scepticism and disagreement.

So you'd think wild parties would be right up my alley. But I suppose the truth is I found them distinctly unrebellious and predictable. Getting stoned? Getting drunk? Idolising a few alternative celebs? It was pretty tame stuff as far as boundary-breaking and tradition-smashing went. Hangovers never changed the world. Drugged stupors never put an end to poverty. Celebs get attention but seldom change the world either.

So if you fondly imagined I spent my teenage years in an addled stupor of non-stop partying - then think again.

R D Laing: radical psychiatrist who questioned definitions of madness
Tim Leary: psychologist and advocate of psychedelic drugs
Abbie Hoffman: one of the founders of the libertarian Yippies movement
Huey Newton: one of the founders of the Black Panthers
Germaine Greer: author of The Female Eunuch
Valerie Solanas: author of the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto

Dodgy deals

There was a riveting exchange about drug use on Question Time* between John Lydon (of the Sex Pistols) and Louise Mensch (the Tory MP).

Louise Mensch said she deeply regretted taking class A drugs when she was young as they had left her with mental health problems such as acute anxiety.

John Lydon poo-pooed her regrets and her anxiety and said there was nothing wrong with drug-taking as long as you were properly informed about them.

From his boorish and aggressive manner, and his habit of talking over everyone else, I can only conclude that his own drug use hasn't done him a lot of good.

Strangely enough, although I grew up in the sixties when drug use was widespread and a lot of my acquaintances were stuffing themselves with every hallucinogen and narcotic they could get their hands on, I hardly touched drugs at all. I tried marijuana twice and LSD twice but I didn't like the effects they had. I didn't like the idea of something taking me over and suppressing my own autonomy and identity. So that was the start and finish of my experiments with drugs.

John Lydon has a point though when he says lack of information makes drugs a lot more dangerous. If you don't know precisely what's in that substance you're shovelling into yourself (as most illegal drugs are routinely adulterated) and if you don't know what dosage you're taking, then you're asking for trouble.

I can still remember a lovely guy I met in the early seventies who was heavily into drugs. One day he took a massive cocktail of goodness knows what, and was found later dead in his bed with blood spilling out of both ears.

If he'd known exactly what he was taking, and known exactly when to stop, he might still be alive.

But when you have only the vaguest idea of what you're putting in your mouth (or arm or nose), it seems sensible to opt out. And listen to Louise Mensch.

PS: If you don't think prescription drugs are dangerous, take a look at this article on antibiotics 

* BBC TV programme about current affairs 

A shocking death

It's always extremely shocking when someone you know kills themself. Even if you're half expecting it, even if they've made a previous attempt, the actual reality of their doing something so desperate and so final is appalling. Especially if the method used was so grisly, as it was in this case.

Alice* was an old school friend of Jenny's. They were very close when they were young and had kept in touch ever since. For the last 31 years Alice had been a diagnosed schizophrenic. There seemed to be little anyone could do for her except keep her in supported housing with carers permanently on hand.

She was always pumped full of drugs, which seemed to do little for her, and any kind of talking cure or non-drug treatment had apparently been ruled out.

Her quality of life was poor and there was no sign of it ever improving significantly. Every day was a frustrating and humiliating experience of not being able to do what she wanted to do, and relying on others who did their best to make her life more worthwhile with limited means.

Many years back she had already expressed her anguish by jumping in front of a train and losing both her legs, which meant artificial legs and greatly reduced mobility. It was hard to have a sensible, coherent conversation with her as she was often scatterbrained and agitated, possibly because of the huge cocktails of drugs she was plied with. It was sometimes hard to pin down her underlying mental state - cheerful or depressed - because she would put on a chirpy front.

But we're told she had been seriously depressed for the last nine weeks and had actually been sectioned three weeks ago - we're not sure why. Twelve days ago she went off from the hospital on her own and was found later in the grounds of a primary school, having slashed her neck with a broken bottle. She died several days later.

It's heartbreaking that someone can come into this life with such high expectations, only to endure such tragic and agonising circumstances that suicide becomes the only answer.

I can't tell you how sad I feel about such a dreadful waste of life.

* not her real name 

Sorry, no baldies

A bald man without much body hair was told he couldn't join the Northern Ireland Police Service. Why? Because he couldn't provide enough hair for a drugs test.

There are of course other sources of DNA for a drugs test - blood, skin, mouthwash, fingerprints, and amniotic fluid if you're female. Surprisingly, the police seemed to be unaware of this.

He* had to go to the High Court to get his application reconsidered, on the rather obvious grounds that the rejection was irrational and discriminatory. An entirely unnecessary legal detour.

Apart from the intriguing idea that serving police officers are likely to be high as a kite, and therefore have regular drug tests (well, I suppose they need something to cope with the stress and strain of the job), I'm struck by the sheer daftness of the reason for turning him away.

If the police don't know all the sources of DNA, you wonder what else they don't know. Do they know how to arrest someone? Do they know how to solve a crime? I'm getting a bit worried. I thought the police were highly-trained professionals, giving the criminals a run for their money. But maybe not. Maybe the next time I see a burglar, I'll call Miss Marple instead.

PS: It's been pointed out to me that hair contains drug traces for several months, while blood, skin etc only contain drug traces for a couple of days. This is why hair is the best source for random drug tests. But it still means ideal applicants can be refused for a comparatively trivial reason.

*His name has been withheld for security reasons.

Thanks for the memory

Homeopathic remedies are getting a lot of stick at the moment. Critics are saying they're totally useless and have no active ingredients except water.

A few days ago some Merseysiders organised a mass overdose of homeopathic medicines to prove they were ineffective and no harm would result. Others have pointed out that there isn't a single molecule of anything beneficial in the remedies, only the supposed "memory" of the molecule.

I've never taken a homeopathic potion in my life, but they're lauded by many public figures including the Royal Family. They can be found in chain stores like Boots and they're available on the NHS.

They've become so respectable that the wave of criticism is not having much effect, even though it's pretty unanswerable. If you were offered a cancer remedy with nothing but the alleged "memory" of an active ingredient, would you be rushing to get it? I doubt it.

A lot of people like the idea of it being a "natural" remedy as opposed to some dubiously potent artificial drug. But homeopathic medicines are also artificial since they're manufactured. They're not something you can pick in the garden or gather on the beach. The "natural" is a misnomer.

I've known homeopathic doctors who stoutly defended their methods. I've known lots of individuals who swear homeopathic remedies cured them of some serious ailment. But the scientific evidence flatly contradicts them. Are we seriously to believe in some mysterious magic process that can't be identified by scientists? That way madness lies.

If Her Majesty wants to take memory-imbued water, good luck to her. I shall save my cash for something with more medical credentials than the modern equivalent of snake oil.

PS: Many patients at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital swear by homeopathic remedies and say they have helped with conditions that didn't respond to conventional treatment. My mind is not closed on the subject!

Drugs furore

Should leisure drugs be legal or illegal? The debate is raging yet again after the sacking of David Nutt, a government adviser on drugs policy.

This journalist is urging complete legalisation of leisure drugs on the basis that adults should be free to consume whatever they want, at their own risk.

It's a tricky argument, mainly because nobody knows exactly what the effects of going legal would be. Would it make little difference, or would there be many more people taking drugs and possibly ruining their lives?

It seems to me that the prediction of lots more druggies and lots more social decline is probably half-baked scaremongering. Yes, we would replace the existing problems with some new ones, but the new ones would be much easier to manage and not so damaging.

All the harmful effects of illegality - contaminated drugs, unintentional overdoses, unhygienic consumption and gang warfare - would be drastically reduced. But it's also true that going legal might encourage more people to take leisure drugs, and health and social problems may increase.

Hang on, though. Yes, consumption might increase, but under much safer conditions, so the chance of coming to harm would be much less. It would be more like taking prescription drugs, with all the rigorous controls that apply to them.

And the argument that adults should be free to ingest whatever's on offer is a strong one. If we're free to eat junk food or slimming pills or herbal remedies, why shouldn't leisure drugs be on the menu?

Intelligent adults are capable of assessing the pros and cons of the drugs in question and deciding whether to accept the risks or not. Why should the state make the choices for us?

But leisure drugs won't be legalised any time soon. The government is terrified of what it might unleash. They prefer the status quo with all its stink of crime and trickery.

Ungrateful patients

I sound like an old fogey when I bemoan the lack of personal responsibility, but the way people treat nurses and paramedics simply trying to do their job disgusts me.

They get punched and kicked, threatened with weapons, insulted and abused, and even have cigarettes stubbed out on them.

There are an estimated 75,000 attacks on NHS medical staff every year in the UK, mostly caused by binge-drinking and drug use. But only a minute number of people are convicted of an offence.

We're talking about health professionals doing the absolutely vital job of treating the sick and injured, yet there are thousands of people out there who think the best reward for that is a punch in the face or a menacing knife blade.

For them, gone are the days when you respected medical staff and courteously accepted treatment. Let alone not getting so high on drink or drugs that you are no longer in control of your actions and violence is inevitable.

The idea of personal responsibility, that you act sensibly and considerately and behave to others as you expect them to behave to you, is lost on them. Their needs come first and nobody else matters.

The problem is that nurses and doctors are reluctant to refuse treatment, even if a person is being totally uncooperative. They are committed to doing their work even when their personal safety is at risk.

We're lucky so many NHS staff are willing to continue working in such conditions and don't just walk out in favour of a more civilised workplace. But they are determined to provide a crucial service despite being permanently under seige. They all deserve medals.

When the cat's away

Well, now that Jenny's away in Canada for a few days, it's all systems go Chez Nick. The wild parties are in full swing, my red-hot mistress is installed in the spare bedroom and the drugs are in plentiful supply.

I'm already exhausted from the non-stop hedonism and self-indulgence. I just haven't done enough of this to build up the necessary stamina and uninhibited abandon. I haven't hung around with enough tearaway celebs lately (of course I'm invited to all their parties but I'm a bit shy so I've missed a few).

The neighbours are already complaining about the noise and disturbance, what with the stretch limos parked all the way up the road, all the glass from the broken windows and the lakes of vomit everywhere. But what the hell, it's only once every six months, why can't the tight-arsed little curtain-twitchers loosen up a little? Jesus, get a life.

The quality of the gossip is first-rate. You wouldn't believe how many secret babies, lovers, drug overdoses, tax dodges and shady business deals I've been privy to. If I got on to the papers, I'd be a rich man. But of course my lips are sealed or my name will be mud and I'll never get invited to Madonna's fiftieth.

If only the paparazzi would restrain themselves a bit, we could really let our hair down. It's a real drag having to rein ourselves in because some cash-hungry snapper is pointing his greasy lens through the front windows. I have to keep the bondage gear and torture equipment well out of sight.

I'm getting through quite a lot of money what with all the booze, the recreational substances and Mick Jagger's private gig. Have you any idea what these people charge? It's a f**king liberty. Isn't his state pension enough?

And the sheer quantity of sexy smalls Ms Bit-On-The-Side goes through is unbelievable. She demands at least half a dozen camisoles a DAY, and even had the cheek to bill me for the new implants. Does she think I'm made of money? I'm not sure how I'm going to explain the eye-popping credit card bill to my dear lady wife.

Still, it'll all have to stop in a few days, and not before time. By then I'll be in a state of total exhaustion, out cold on the shag pile. It's all too much for a sexagenarian, I tell you.

(Some people are spreading vicious rumours that all I'm really doing is cooking chili risottos, reading pretentious books and playing Annie Lennox non-stop. This couldn't be further from the truth. My lawyers have been consulted)

Dealing with drugs

When the media love to scare us all witless about the horrors of drugs, and how a few grams of skunk or cocaine will turn us into psychotic beasts, it takes a hardy soul to defy the shrieking headlines and say all drugs should be legalised.

But why not? It's been pointed out often that most drug-related tragedies actually stem from illegality, and many of the deaths, overdoses, collapses and addictions would not occur if drugs were openly available.

It's illegality that means drugs are taken furtively in unhygienic conditions that cause infections. It means dosage and quality are uncertain and drugs can be contaminated with serious poisons.

It means that in an emergency people are loathe to seek help because they're doing something forbidden. And it means accurate information about drugs and their physical effects is hard to obtain.

What's more, if it all went legal, the unscrupulous drug-dealers who sell polluted products at inflated prices would have to shut up shop or clean up their act, and they'd have to pay the government some tax instead of just lining their pockets.

But at the end of the day, drug use isn't a legal issue, it's a health issue. You can't stop people taking them, but what you can do is ensure they take them in conditions that safeguard their health and don't lead to illness, unhappiness and isolation. Conditions in which they aren't treated as pariahs and outcasts but given all the advice, support and information they need to indulge their tastes safely and not recklessly.

Most of the tough talk comes from ill-informed hotheads who've never tried the drugs in question and are swayed by rawcous hard-liners - even when they're happily consuming dangerous drugs like alcohol and tobacco themselves.

But draconian laws aren't stopping the explosion in drug use. We need a better remedy for pain and distress than law courts and jail cells.

(For the record, the only banned drugs I've taken are cannabis and LSD. I've never tried any others, mostly because I've never been offered them - what a sheltered life I lead)

PS: Very interesting programme on Channel 4 on August 3 by Dr Colin Froggatt arguing that heroin should be decriminalised and freely prescribed. He says this has been a big success in Switzerland. Thanks for the link, Bellulah.