As the atheist ex-presenter of a defunct BBC religious affairs programme (The Heaven and Earth Show) my demise came not because of my lack of belief, but my comparison of the appearance of an ingredient in Greek Easter bread to crack cocaine. I just said it looked like it - not that it smoked like it or that it induced the same feeling of exhilaration and well-being. But the viewers of Heaven and Earth had a suspicious streak. As one woman put it; “Why was it that Phil thought immediately of that particular comparison and, indeed, one has to ask the question, how does he know what crack cocaine looks like?”
A century ago, it was precisely the same respectable middle-aged women who now complain to the BBC who were most likely to be drug addicts. Heroin, cocaine and morphine were all available on prescription and widely dispensed by male doctors to deal with difficult “lady patients”. Queen Victoria liked to dabble with tincture of cannabis for her period pains and Prime Minister Gladstone used to take slugs of liquid morphine before rising unsteadily to defend himself in the House of Commons. At the time, this sort of behaviour was seen as entirely reasonable. Whatever gets you through the night.
Drugs were demonised in this country during the First World War, when alcohol was restricted and the large numbers of troops in London were keen on cocaine parties. The belief was that our chaps were being corrupted by Johnny Foreigner, and the possession of “evil” cocaine and heroin was outlawed in 1916 under the Defence of the Realm Act.
