Considering how commonplace drug use is in society generally, why does the media think any of us are bothered about celebrity drug 'scandals'?
It’s odd finding yourself feeling sorry for celebrities. A bit like feeling bankers’ pain or tearing up at the suffering of Old Etonians. But sometimes I do. And that sometimes is whenever a drugs “exposé” appears on the front page of a tabloid or trashy magazine.
From Daniella to Nigella, drugs “shames” and “hells” and “binges” have long been a red-top staple. And, as tabloids are no longer allowed to hack people’s phones in order to tell us about their love lives, they’re becoming more of a staple than ever. But if you take even a second to think about the latest cocaine humiliation, the question you find yourself asking is why is this even a story? Why is anyone taking drugs a story?
Drug use is ubiquitous. Go to any North London dinner party and the odds are better than even that a couple of the smokers outside will be schmokers. A decade ago, coke users would go to the loo after the main course then come back down sniffing furtively. Now they’re more likely to open a wrap on the table. Which will then be followed in short order by three other people, relieved that the almost quaint residual social awkwardness of being the first cokehead is out of the way.
At livelier parties, you see MDMA, at edgier, more outré ones, perhaps even ketamine, mushrooms or hipster opium smokers. And that’s before we get into the ever changing world of synthetic drugs like “plant food” and “meow-meow” whose chief function appears to be to offer a briefly legal “bad ecstasy” experience before the law catches up and makes them as illegal as good ecstasy.
Let’s face it. With drugs these days, unless you pull out a syringe and start taking off your belt, no-one’s going to bat an eyelid. And the reason they won’t is that they probably take drugs too. If they don’t, it won’t be because they’re morally opposed to drugs, it’ll be because they’ve tried them and decided they prefer the major legal drug, alcohol. It’s very easy to forget that the 40-year olds of today were all going to acid house parties and M25 raves in the 90s. We all inhaled, we all snorted, we all popped pills – and many of us have continued to do so. Because, like every generation since the Boomers, we haven’t been very good at growing up.
