Nanny state

Or should that be Big Brother? Just got call from the youngpersonsunit or something. Some New Labour bollocks.

It's about my daughter's arrest last year for smoking dope.

Apparently the police lied to me. Her arrest will be on her record for 100 years.

It will affect her ability to get a visa for the United States.

So trying a bit of spliff, from a friend's joint, not even her own, at the age of 14 means she will have a record for a century?

The youngpersonsunit said it was government policy to follow this up. To warn young people of the dangers of drugs. To give her 'drugs counselling'. To get her into after-school activities. 

I fumed.

I was more angry about this police lie than my daughter's dope-smoking experiment. She isn't a stoner after all. 

She doesn't have time for after-school activities. She's too tired and has homework. 

From MMR vaccines to thrusting endless leaflets about how to feed my child (5 a day) to general interfering, this New Labour government is starting to turn me towards freedom (liberté rather than egalité) on a scale worthy of the Unabomber.

Please butt out. 

We are not all idiots. 

Some parents are idiots, cruel, ignorant etc. But little is done about them (Baby P anyone? I heard Sharon Shoesmith's interview on Woman's hour and it was a show. She is the typical Blair babe spouting gobbledygook rather than common sense). No, those parents, clearly inadequate, are given endless second chances.

Why is everybody lying about drugs anyway? At least Obama admitted to inhaling.

And the hits keep coming...

My daughter's cell

Tuesday: two teeth broke.
Thursday afternoon: I get a call. A young boy/girl saying:

It's the police. Your daughter has been arrested. You need to come down to the station.

Is this a hoax? I demand angrily.

You see I once got a hoax call a year or so ago saying my daughter had been arrested.

No. She's been arrested for smoking cannabis.

Still sure it was a hoax call, I say, haughtily: Can I speak to somebody else please?

Sure, I'll pass Sergeant P.

A deep man's voice came on:

Yes, I'm afraid your daughter has been taken in. This is not a hoax. She was caught with her friend N. We need you to come down. Shall I pass you your daughter?

My teenager, sullenly, to me: Yeah.

Me: Is this true?

Her: Yeah.

Me: You told me the other night you weren't doing this.

Her: I wasn't. It wasn't me.

Me: You weren't smoking?

Her: I was holding it for my friend.

You were holding it for your friend I repeat scornfully. So you weren't smoking?

I hear a hesitation, under the maternal interrogation:

Her: Well, yes I was.

The sergeant comes on again.

I say to him: I can't come right now. I've got an emergency appointment at the dentist.

Well, come after that then, he says, cheerily.

I sound decisive.

This is good. A warning shot.

I'm rather angry so I say:

Put her in a cell. Frighten her. Put handcuffs on if need be.

But, I say relenting, she is only young. This is a first offence. I wouldn't want this to go on her record. Affect her future.

The sergeant replies: I wouldn't worry too much.

The school calls. I assume they know what is happening. So I tell them. The deputy head sounds not too bothered.

Yes Madame. Good. I zink she should be given a fright too.

I told them to put her in a cell.

Zvery good Madame. He says approvingly. A svery good idea!  Eh, why not, eh? Au revoir, Madame.

When I get to the police station later, the mum of the other girl is sitting there with a man friend and a solicitor. I, as usual, am alone. I get a little anxious.

Do we need a solicitor? Surely they are just going to tell them off?

The solicitor says: Well, it could go to youth court.
I speak to the duty sergeant. He intimates through sign language that she'll just get a slapped wrist. So I don't call a solicitor.
I'm led inside, through a warren of rooms, to a big room at the back. It's like being on the set of Hill St. Blues. There's a big desk with perspex screens. One tiny plainclothes policewoman in stiletto heels is saying:

...she says she wasn't shoplifting, she was merely showing the item to her husband. She also says she only bit the policeman... I didn't hear the rest.

A cell is unlocked and my daughter is led out. She is wearing white sweat pants and plimpsolls that she wasn't wearing when she left this morning.

I start to laugh: My god it's like Guantanamo bay.

I try to stifle my laughs, knowing it's not the right reaction.

We had to remove her clothes, M'aam, due to cords on her trousers and laces in her shoes, says the desk sergeant.

In my head I'm thinking, what in case she hangs herself? For this?
I try to look stern. Actually I'm fascinated. I've never been arrested and this is the deepest I have ever been into a police station. I'd like to hang out, listen to the stories, ask questions.
My daughter is read her rights. It's all starting to sound quite serious. I thought that they would just tell her off and that would be it.
My daughter has her DNA, her fingerprints and her photo taken. These will be on record forever.(1) I ask if I can have a copy of the photo:

'For Facebook' I joke, inappropriately.

No we can't have a copy. The policeman and policewoman are the ones who called me. I apologize again for not believing them. The policeman, who has already admitted to me that he smoked dope at 13, replies:

Oh it's really common. I rang one father and asked him to come down to the station and he refused saying his son was asleep in bed. I had to insist several times that he went to look himself. He did look. Came back to the phone and said he'd be down in five minutes.

We wait on a bench for a while. I tell my daughter that I won't be telling grandma and grandpa. For the first time she shows emotion:

Oh thank you, she exhales, with pent-up relief.

It's significant that they are the people whose disapproval counts most. I can't blame her. I'm scared of them too... which is why I'm not telling them.

An inspector leads us into a little room. He extracts two new tapes from their wrapping, explaining that one will be sealed for the court, if it should come to court and the other is for his notes. I'm told I cannot speak during the interview. He asks my daughter her name and school.

He shows her the evidence, a half smoked reefer, in a plastic bag:

Were you smoking this this afternoon in R place?

Yeah.

Did you know that it is cannabis?

Yeah.

Do you know that cannabis is illegal?

Yeah.

Have you smoked cannabis before?

Yeah. Two or three times.

Where? with friends or at home?

( I stiffen, thinking oh shit. Cos up to now I've been playing the good mother. But the truth is, on occasion, I will smoke the odd joint. Not often and I don't buy it. Many of my friends smoke. They've smoked at my house. I've smoked joints with friends at my house. Don't drop me in it, I'm thinking silently, to my daughter.)

Er, with friends and stuff, she says. Phew.

He ends the interview. He asks about her school. He says to me:

Well I shouldn't be here, interviewing a 14 year old school girl about smoking a bit of blow. Most of the police here have smoked blow. Some of them still do. But it is illegal. This will be kept on file. We will not take it to court but you are getting a reprimand. This is a first offence. But if you do it again then the consequences will be more serious. These papers will be passed onto the relevant agencies, social services etc.

Oh no I say.

He reassures me: Your daughter goes to a good school and comes from a good home. We are not worried about her.

I gulp, thinking I'm not so sure about that.
On the way home I look at my daughters mobile. That boy is still texting at 11.30 pm. I see from the other night, he has texted:

I've just had the funniest row with your mum

I see that she has texted him back with:

My mum is a fat ugly old cow. She is mental.

I feel tired. No, not tired. Something else. Despair?

That night my daughter sleeps in my bed. I see her little shoulders. I feel sad. She's only a little kid.( In fact one of the reasons she was arrested is that she's so small and young looking. The police thought she was only 12. ) She must have been really frightened. I feel guilty about telling them to keep her in a cell. I feel worried that she now has a record. In the morning I say:

You do realise now that if your mates start smoking, you have to move away don't you? That you can't take any risks now?

Yes I know mum she says.

 She looks older.

(1) Keeping DNA indefinitely for people not convicted of any crime has now been successfully challenged in the European courts (link).

The party

A party in Archway, the 1987 summer of love generation, awash with drugs, fuelled by acid punch. So different from parties where alcohol is the main intoxicant, such a different ambiance. Saucer-eyed hippy girls speaking breathlessly about how working in a psychic bookshop changed them so profoundly. Another, showing off her lotus position, babbles nonsensically in a mid-Atlantic accent while the Wizard feigns interest in her mind. Her idea of a sartorial party accessory was a purple hula hoop. B told me about her relationship ordeal and resulting damage with 'Paradox', a charismatic dreadlocked poet who teaches telepathy, practices free love, and follows the Mayan calendar. Equador, a blue-eyed magician with putty coloured ringlets, dazzles me with sleight of hand tricks. Everyone is friendly, in slow motion, exchanging dreamy stares and faux significant smiles. Alot of sitting around on cushions in the L-shaped "Goddess room". The house is lovely. I was inappropriately dressed, having come from another event, in non-hippy attire, short black dress/heels/stockings and suspenders! Oh well, the blokes seemed to enjoy it.
I meet Bubbles, a fellow ex-lido resident (coincidentally saw his ex, Becky, who I haven't seen for years, in Hoxton last week), still drunk, still honest, still lovely. "2002, 2003, 2004, 2005" he nods to me enthusiastically. "Yeah" I agree, not having the faintest idea of what he is talking about. Then the penny drops..."Great years for activism, we really played some tricks on the government, I dropped some fire crackers on May Day, never even got caught...great protests" he expands. Yes they were. That huge demo against the Iraq war in 2003, a million Londoners on the streets. The anti G8 camps. May Days. Dsei. Fairford. Strange to see another activist in a scene where nobody is angry and everybody thinks they can change things by positive thoughts and wishes alone...

Drugs

Next speaker is Frank Willis, who is a northern bloke with long heavy-metal hair and bright blue eyes peeping out of a kindly bashed-in face. He speaks quietly, humbly, no motivational pyro-technics for him.
"I would just like to say straight away that I believe that that Dean Warwick was killed by a sonic weapon.. you can buy these weapons for 10 grand." (Claps and approval).
"Can you imagine a scenario where a group of people make drugs and then within 4 months, 3,500 thousand people die.
This happened 2 years ago with Glaxo-Kline. But then you get Leah Betts who allegedly died of ecstacy and people are still going on about it.
Everybody takes drugs" he pauses. "Everybody here takes drugs" he states controversially to this audience of old age pensioners. Then qualifies his statement:"Look there are people here with coffee.That's a drug. I got stopped for possessing cannabis. I asked the police who is the victim of this crime? and he said, and I kid you not, Gordon Brown. Who was then the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I tried cannabis then got addicted to nicotine. Nicotine is poisonous but it's a legal drug.
At the age of 20 I went to Rhodesia and joined the army. Then I was in the Pathfinders in South Africa. The army encourages you to smoke dope on sentry duty, you have more sensitive hearing. The Americans developed this in Vietnam.
After South Africa I went to South America where I became a full mercenary working for Pablo Escobar. I personally killed 2 American marines who were spying on him.
Later on I met the marines who were in Colombia. I met Escobar on a personal level. I was in my room playing Deep Purple who turned out to be Escobar's favourite band. Even though Escobar was a big coke dealer he never touched it, only smoked cannabis. I joined his intimate circle. Mossad bought from him, South African bosses, MI6, the CIA, and I'm thinking why?
This country went to war with China over opium. Prior to World War Two alot of drugs were legal. Coke was in coca cola.
After the war the biggest producer was Germany, then Japan. All the kamikaze pilots were off their face on cocaine.
Man has always taken drugs, the evidence is there in archeology.
I wonder why 147 mummies contain cocaine and cannabis, which is indigenous to South America.
The government is control of the drug trade. In Afghanistan now, the opium trade has gone up since we are in there.
How did they get cocaine into US? Via Panama, then Amoco which is owned by the Bush family, from the oil rigs it is transported to US air force bases in the states.
Howard Marks, later on, he freely admitted he worked for MI6.
The Americans discovered crack. The government was giving it to the people. To back this up, the cocaine came out of Panama via Noriega. But Noriega got greedy, and the CIA decided he was a problem, then the US invaded Panama, against international law, kidnapped Noriega and put him in jail in the US. Where was Noriega's diplomatic immunity? That broke all international law. Nobody said a word.
That laid the foundations for America invading Iraq. Where are the weapons of Mass destruction?
I left Colombia and returned to this country. My passport was taken from me, I thought it was because I wouldn't work for MI6.
Earlier my dad died,and going through his papers, I find his service record. He was in the Malayan special forces. In his will, he apologized for making sure my passport got taken off me. It just goes to show, that people who are in the know, do have a hell of alot of control.
The government are manipulating us all through drugs.
Shipping it from Colombia to Rome, from Rome, the British ship it into London and then the rest of the country.
Every weekend 20 million people take drugs in this country. A ton of cocaine won't last a city a weekend. And the kind of amount that gets found by customs, it's nothing. It's in the governments interest to be involved with the drugs trade, they are making alot of money.
Why is America so powerful? The American public pay the taxes, it goes on record, places like area 51 which cost millions to run, where is the money coming from? From the drugs trade.
The money from drugs buys arms from Israel then going to South Africa.
The Bush family still carried on dealing drugs. the Americans are making millions from cocaine each day.
There was a Mel Gibson film, Air America.
You'd think people would come forward, but they are ridiculed, and sometimes commit suicide,
For years I kept my mouth shut cos of Escobar, I saw a man shot for not saying good morning to Escobar, but it turned out the man was deaf.
Escobar helped the community, football stuff, houses built. He did more than the Colombian government. Then America under Reagan started the war on drugs. There was all this stuff about crack addicts are all crazy, but the CIA produced the crack. Nobody stands up against the American government but I will speak out. I don't care.
Pharmaceutical companies are producing drugs like Mogodon. Doctors are the biggest drug pushers. Every drug has a side effect. The doctors don't know what the drugs do really. Last year 114 people died in this country from illegal drugs.
There are more road accidents.
We are being manipulated here by our government. Labour reduced ecstacy from class A to Class B. The police know that cannabis doesn't kill people and want to legalise it. St johns wort is legal though and also is mind altering.
Cannabis makes you high, it doesn't make you feel invincible, you just want to chill out. But they tell you it's bad for you but you are allowed alcohol and ciggs.
PCP angel dust, was made by Hells Angels in California. The American government set about persecuting people who used it. Demonise the users. Eventually the Hells Angels dropped it. Dropped producing it. Then the US government produced it.
Wherever there are drugs there is money to be made.
I recently got a phone call off of MI6. In this underground base they are making LSD. LSD isn't as popular as before but is becoming popular again. It's easy to make, cheap.
LSD was a drug produced by the American government themselves to improve the soldiers performance. Trouble was it was so hallucinogenic that the sodliers were off their faces.
In the 60's aircraft sprinkled liquid LSD onto New York. The Americans are using drugs to gain control over people.
South Africans put a drug into the water that only kills black people.
Genetics, most heroin addicts have this chromosome in their genes which makes them addicted.
Alot of scientists have figured this out, but government are still trying to blame the individuals.
The majority of so called drugs pushers are friends of the people buying it.
People on street level aren't really making any money out of it.
Most pushers don't make much money, it's the government that does.
About 6 years ago, I was in prison in Leyland, and I met this guy called Steve who got jailed for 23 years for smuggling cannabis into this country. Guy next to him said "I only got 9 years for murdering my wife!".
Everyone of us breaks the law, every day, parking offences etc. The system spend thousands to pursue it. Yet we are the ones paying the taxes to pursue this.
The pharmaceutical companies make more money out of drugs that don't work. They have drugs that can cure cancer and they don't release them. People who get happy pills at the doctors, don't know whats in the drugs. but people who take ecstacy etc know exactly what they are taking and its effect.
Many cannabis users won't take any other drugs. Some heroin users can take it and leave it. It's the genetics that make heroin addicts or alcoholics and they pass these genes onto their children.
I personally have taken drugs such as mandrake root, cannabis, ecstacy, magic mushrooms, fly agaric, LSD, then the doctor gave me Prozac which turned me into a raving mutter. I believe that making these drugs illegal is a way of suppressing individuality.
In an interview with David Icke and Credo Mutwa, Credo is a Zulu, they talked about innoculations. These innoculations are suppressing psychic ability. I'm a medium and a healer. Is it a coincidence that because of my childhood that I missed out on these innoculations...?
The US government are putting enzymes into Macdonalds but at any given moment they can switch on a sonic beam and these enzymes make you ill.
Sonic weapons brought the twins towers down, the actual aeroplanes were holograms.The technology the US have is incredible. Sonic weaponry been around since the 50s.They can certainly can bring buildings down with it. Sound is a vibration, it can alter the physical vibration.
My mum had Alzheimers, cost alot in drugs, 300 quid a week. then funding ran out, and she died.
I don't advocate the use of drugs but I do drink alot of coffee."