Tales of Gloucester
A current work in progress
Gloucester is no exception as provincial English towns and cities go, in parts economically and intellectually backward complete with a bawdy architectural ugliness. Where housing and shops specialize in that singular marketing principle – cheap. A place where those priced out of the rural middle class comfort zones drift towards the lowest common denominator remaining.
Heroin and crack are now an everyday part of UK life. Unseen by most - but divisively used by others in order to scare public thinking that a fictitious golden age is on the brink collapse.
To its users a Class A drug offers feelings of relaxation, escapism and euphoria. A sub-cultural identity for the individual is developed with progressive usage - complete with own language and protocol. Drugs build disparate communities where relationships revolve around their purchase and consumption.
Class A drugs are key drivers certain areas of the city, running micro-economies and even affecting house pricing. They contribute to nearly half of recorded crime (particularly theft). Drug sales offer work and profit in areas whereby other forms of economic furtherance are conspicuously absent. They provide the social, welfare, medical and legal professions with countless work opportunities and career paths.
Punitive laws passed by opportunistic politicians (fueled by the need for good media sound-bite), push addicts in and out of prison on to the streets or into peripheral methadone programs - whilst simultaneously attending social ‘initiatives’ intending to make upright citizens from junkies in a matter of weeks. Each twist and turn of this confusing (often contradictory) system being cunningly circumnavigated by those desperate for money and ideas to feed their omnipresent addiction.
The state-run recovery schemes are hopelessly floored. Significantly staffed by individuals with no history of substance addiction or practical experience from living in economically and culturally deprived regions. And when completed they inevitably return the individual back to the same economic culture created by the substances they are supposed to steer clear from.
Needless to say all this costs the taxpayer millions each year.
Success when it does occur is usually associated with strong family support or having the monetary means to physically relocate to a ‘cleaner’ environment. It is still the voluntary sector that does more to practically help drug addicts and users.
If I were a nice middle class kid I would come out with art speak about how the images are about pain and suffering – No, this is about the drugs, a growing sub-culture and those that live around me in this run down yet fascinating city.
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