Cocteau, Trocchi, Quincey and Burroughs

It is a great pleasure to offer our readers from Slovenia this article on the lives of notable opiate and other drug users, courtesy of our eminent friend Lana Durjarva. Lana promises a translation from the original Slovenian article posted here, made available on the Radio Student blog:

»Če bi kdo vprašal, zakaj zdravje ni dovolj, zakaj je razpoka zaželena, je to zato, ker od nekdaj mislimo le po njej in na njenih robovih in ker vse, kar je v človeštvu dobrega in velikega, prihaja in odhaja po njej, pri ljudeh seveda, ki so se pripravljeni uničiti, in ker imamo raje smrt kot zdravje, ki se nam ga ponuja.« (Gilles Deleuze)


V današnji Teoremi bo govora o političnih, medicinskih, medijskih in umetniških diskurzih o drogah. Odvisno od perspektive, ki jo zavzamemo, so droge večinoma obravnavane kot kemična snov, medikament, blago, virus, fetiš, obredno mesto ali pa zgolj razlog odvisnosti. Droge so problem, o tem obstaja bolj ali manj splošni konsenz, ni pa čisto razjasnjeno, zakaj je temu tako in nenazadnje, komu sploh predstavljajo problem. Je to problem za uporabnika, za družbo, za oblast, za kapital? Ali naj ga rešuje medicina, farmakologija, psihologija, pedagogika, morda kazensko pravo? Kakšna je sploh funkcija problematiziranja drog in njihovih uporabnikov ter kdaj in čemu je do nje prišlo?
Z Derrido lahko rečemo, da je droga po svojem bistvu neznanstven pojem, nastal iz moralnih in političnih presoj. Droga predstavlja element političnega razmerja, kjer se preko politično skonstituirane prepovedi izvaja urejanje odnosov med ljudmi ter razvrščanje le-teh v različne kategorije, ki so v različnih družbeno-kulturnih kontekstih različno sprejete. Droga ni problematična zaradi svojih sestavin in lastnosti, pač pa je problematična zato, ker se prek nje urejajo politična razmerja med ljudmi na točno določen način, in sicer tako, da so nekatere droge problematične oziroma prepovedane, druge pa dovoljene. Skozi drogo torej poteka politični boj, ki jo tudi konstituira. Prepovedane droge skozi dominantni politični in medicinski diskurz postanejo sredstvo povzročanja in razpihovanja strahu med ljudmi, uporabniki ilegalnih drog pa so prek monopolnih diskurzov umeščeni v kategorije bolnih, patoloških, deviantnih, kriminalnih, travmatiziranih, nesprejemljivih in tujih – skratka, zasedejo položaj Drugega.
Treba je povedati, da se identitete kot take konstruirajo pretežno in bistveno skozi razliko do Drugega. Biti nekaj vedno pomeni ne biti nekaj drugega. Kot pravi Derrida, velja, da konstrukcija identitete vselej temelji na izključevanju nečesa ter na posledičnem vzpostavljanju nasilne hierarhije med obema poloma. Sleherna konstrukcija identitete, ki sicer zavoljo svoje zlociranosti na preseku logike ekvivalence in logike razlike za vedno ostane razcepljena, je obenem nujno zbazirana na fantazmi sovražnega, heterogenega, dialektično nenadomestljivega Drugega, tujca, ki nas zmerom ogroža oziroma nas tudi zmerom mora ogrožati tako s svojimi dejanji kot tudi s svojim obstojem.
Ker se bomo v oddaji posvetili analizi diskurzov o drogah, naj za začetek na kratko omenimo, kaj sploh je diskurz kot tak. Na kratko bi ga lahko opredelili kot »specifičen način sporočanja o svetu ali razumevanja sveta oz. enega izmed njegovih vidikov«. Diskurz je jezik, ki odraža in oblikuje družbeni red oziroma, rečeno s Foucaultom, je način nanašanja in konstruiranja vednosti o določenih področjih prakse. Je veriga oziroma skupek izrazov, ki se v nekih specifičnih okoliščinah pojavijo o neki specifični temi ali dogodku ter ki posledično služi produkciji vednosti ter reprodukciji resnice in oblastnih razmerij. Diskurz in ne subjekt je po Foucaultu namreč tisti, ki vednost sploh ustvarja, subjekt pa v bistvu ni nič drugega kot izpraznjeno izjavljalsko mesto, ki ga zasedajo posamezniki, zinterpelirani v specifične ideologije.
Monopolna diskurza o drogah sta medicinsko-psihiatrični in ter politični diskurz, ki je osnovan pretežno na policijsko-represivni drži. Za oba je značilno pojmovanje drogiranja v smislu družbenega odklona od standardov družbeno še sprejemljivega vedenja, pri čemer prvi definira uporabnika drog kot kriminalca, drugi pa kot pacienta. Politični diskurz je zbaziran pretežno na doktrini prohibicije, ki se jo vzdržuje tako z ideologijo kot z represijo, pri čemer je ključen normativ prepovedi v obliki zakona, ki sicer ne kriminalizira samega uživanja droge, pač pa vse, kar je njegov predpogoj, torej posest, prodajo, proizvodnjo, omogočanje uporabe ter dajanje droge. Navkljub drugačnim pretenzijam je prepovedi, ki zadeva droge in ki se sklicuje predvsem na paternalistično skrb po varovanju zdravja oziroma po varovanju posameznikov v njihovo dobro pred samimi sabo, seveda že v strukturo vpisano, da ne bo uspešna, saj lahko cilja le na prepoved stvari, ne pa tudi želje po njej.
Na drugi strani medicinski diskurz vztraja pri redukcionističnem modelu odvisnosti kot bolezni ter pri poudarjanju zdravega življenja skozi prizmo primarne preventive, pri tem pa je popolnoma spregledana psihopatologija učinkov turbo-kapitalizma, ob upoštevanju katere bi se primarna preventiva znala izkazati za nekaj subverzivnega. Medicina ima skupaj z znanostjo monopol nad drogo, z opravičilom, da vse to počne v imenu zdravja, pa si krepi moč znotraj politike drog; medicina torej klasificira in predpisuje, predvsem pa si pacienta pod pretvezo, da ga zdravi, na bolj ali manj ekspliciten način podreja. Kot sama po sebi umevna, nepotrebna utemeljevanja se pri medicinskem in psihiatričnem diskurzu o drogah smatra predpostavka, da je zdravje ultimativna vrednota, pri čemer se pozablja, da je bolezen neuniverzalna kontekstualno določena kategorija ter da je sama ideologija zdravja zbazirana predvsem na idealizaciji predstav, razmislekov in vrednot, značilnih za srednji razred.
Politični in medicinski diskurz sta torej tista, ki predstavljata nezmotljivi avtoriteti na področju obravnave ilegalnih drog in kot taka začrtata osnovne smernice, v sklopu katerih se uživanje drog smatra bodisi kot zločin bodisi kot bolezen, nato pa je potrebna še uspešna interpelacija ljudi v obe doktrini, pri čemer odigrajo ključno vlogo predvsem mediji. Medijska reprezentacija drog sicer politični in medicinski diskurz kombinira bolj ali manj po trenutni potrebi, pri čemer je njena ključna karakteristika, da ostaja glede omenjene problematike globoko senzacionalistična, redukcionistična in moralistična. Pojasnjevanje širšega družbenega konteksta uporabe drog in problematiziranje suverene prepovedi sta v medijski reprezentaciji praktično neobstoječa, edina pot, ki je pri ilegalnih drogah diskurzivno dovoljena, pa je tista, ki vodi v zapor, na psihiatrijo ali v mrtvašnico. Obenem se kot evidentna sama po sebi navaja binarna razlika med dobrim abstinentom in slabim džankijem, pri čemer pa se popolnoma zataji heterogeno naravo sfere uživalcev prepovedanih drog, ki je neuniformna ne samo v smislu raznolikosti kemičnih substanc, pač pa tudi, kar zadeva pogostost njihove uporabe ter pojav odvisnosti.

Večina piscev o drogah izhaja iz specifičnih akademskih, medicinskih, pravnih, vladnih, farmacevtskih ali socialnih krogov ter povečini ne gradi svojega dela na osnovi praktične izkušnje z ilegalnimi farmakološkimi preparati. Brez težav bi lahko zatrdili, da tudi zaradi tega ostajajo bolj ali manj ujetniki svojih disciplin. Pri literarni umetnosti o drogah pa je temu pogosto drugače.
Prvo literarno delo, ki se je fokusiralo izključno na izkušnjo uporabe opija, je bil roman Izpovedi angleškega uživalca opija, ki ga je v 19. stoletju spisal Thomas de Quincey. Diskurz o opiatih se seveda ni začel z De Quinceyem, vendar so dela pred njim zavzela bodisi pozicijo medicinske avtoritete ali pa je bila v ospredju predvsem perspektiva popotnika, ki se je srečeval s kulturami Bližnjega in Daljnega Vzhoda, za katere je bila uporaba opija z namenom doseganja užitka prominentna, vsaj kar zadeva nekatere družbene skupine.
Z De Quinceyem pa se zadeva bistveno spremeni – opij postane centralni element vsebine romana, za katerega je sicer karakteristična obravnava tako užitka kot bolečine konzumacije opija. Izpovedi lahko beremo hkrati kot promocijo uživanja opija kot tudi svarilo pred njegovimi destruktivnimi učinki. Opij je obravnavan tako kot genialen užitek ter kasneje tudi kot čista mizerija, veriga, ki si jo je nič hudega sluteč nadel uživalec in iz katere primeža se ne more izviti. Vseeno je zanj značilna predvsem romantizacija uporabe opija, kar je bila v literaturi pred De Quinceyem popolna neznanka.
»Pravični, neskončno nežni, mogočni opij! Ti prinašaš v srca revnih in bogatih brez razlike balzam za rane, ki se nikdar ne zacelijo, in za muke, ki ženejo duha v upor. Mogočno zgovorni opij, ki s silo svoje besede odnašaš načrte, ki jih je kovala jeza; ki vračaš krivcu za eno noč upanje njegove mladosti in mu umiješ z rok kri, ki so jo prelile. Pravični opij! Ti kličeš na prisanjano zatožno klop tiste, ki so po krivici sodili, da bo slavil zmagoslavje nedolžnik, ki trpi, ti izničuješ sodbe krivičnih sodnikov. Iz globine teme, iz fantastične množice možganskih podob gradiš mesta in templje, lepše, kot so Fidijeve in Praksitelove umetnine, sijajnejše, kot je razkošje Babilona in Hekatompilusa. Iz zmedenega sanjskega spanca prikličeš v sončno luč – očiščene grobne sramote – obraze že davno pokopanih lepotic in poteze srečnih ljudi, ki so nekoč stanovali v hiši. Samo ti daješ ljudem te darove in ti hraniš ključe paradiža – neskončno nežni, mogočni opij.«
Navkljub romantizaciji in mistifikaciji opija pa je pri De Quinceyu še zmerom mogoče opaziti diskurz legitimizacije konzumiranja opija, ki je zasnovan na nuji medicinske uporabe le-tega, vsaj kar zadeva začetke njegove kemične romance. To utemeljevanje, ki funkcionira kot opravičilo, je skladno z duhom in držo 19. stoletja, v katerem se konzumacija opija prične obravnavati kot predmet moralne obsodbe.
Uporaba opija pri De Quinceyu je bila torej sprva utilitaristična v smislu odpravljanja bolečine, 'mizerije' in 'teme', kaj kmalu pa postane njena prvenstvena funkcija doseganje užitka. Užitek, dosežen zavoljo 'stimulativne narave opija' je po De Quinceyu neprimerljiv s katerimkoli užitkom, doseženim brez farmakoloških pripomočkov; užitek opija je 'nebesni', 'genialen' in 'mogočen', je 'prenosna ekstaza', 'apokalipsa notranjega sveta' ter 'sreča, kupljena za penij', obenem pa je hkrati garant moralne obsodbe s strani družbe ter poosebitev brutalne neusmiljenosti, ki po veliki večini rezultira v zasužnjenosti in samouničenju.
Estetizacija izkušnje samodestrukcije preko uporabe drog se je sicer zavestno začela z Baudelairom, pri De Quinceyu pa ostaja bolj ali manj na nezavedni ravni. Bolj bistveno za njegovo delo je, da se je z njim začela izgrajevati identiteta tako konzumenta kot, še pomembneje, odvisnika od drog, ki se je do popolnosti sicer razvila kasneje pri Cocteauju in Burroughsu. »Suženj opija, suženj, ki ne zmore razbiti svojih verig.« Treba pa je poudariti, da ta identiteta za De Quinceya ni niti abnormalna niti uniformna. De Quinceyev odvisnik, ki balansira med periodičnim premagovanjem navade in recidivom, ki mu povečini sledi, pa ni bolnik. De Quincey namreč ni poznal teorije odvisnosti kot bolezni, ki se je razvila in razširila v medicinskih krogih za časa dvajsetega stoletja. Odvisnost je pri De Quinceyu predvsem odločitev, odločitev, ki na dolgi rok zasužnjuje, vendar pa je v izhodišču svobodna in obenem ni reprezentirana znotraj binarne delitve na 'dobro' abstinenco in 'zlo' konzumacijo, značilne za sodobni dominantni diskurz o drogah.
Percepiranje uporabe opija kot svobodne odločitve je sicer značilno tudi za Jeana Cocteauja in njegov roman Opij: »Opij je odločitev, ki jo je treba sprejeti.« Delo, ki je nastalo za časa Cocteaujevega bivanja na kliniki zavoljo zdravljenja odvisnosti, sicer po načinu romantizacije kajenja opija močno vleče na De Quinceyeve Izpovedi, vendar pa bi ga lahko najbolj nazorno opisali predvsem kot elegijo za izgubljeno ljubeznijo. Knjiga, ki je skonstituirana iz paragrafov, ki govorijo o paralelnem svetu opija ter o francoski umetniški sceni, po kateri se je Cocteau gibal, je nastajala za časa, ko je Cocteaujevo obdobje kohabilitacije z opijem bolj ali manj minilo, tisto, kar je ostalo in kar preveva njegovo delo, pa je predvsem nostalgija. Vrnitev je neprijetna, pravi Cocteau, in nanjo nikakor ni ponosen. Nasprotno, v Opiju eksplicitno izrazi, da je »osramočen, da je bil izključen iz tistega sveta«. Opij, delo, ki ga zaznamuje popolno pomanjkanje kakršnegakoli rekonvalescentnega obžalovanja in ki ga krasijo Cocteaujeve risbe, skonstituirane pretežno iz stiliziranih pip za kajenje opija, v katere mutirajo naslikani individuumi, predstavlja psihologijo kadilca opija oziroma mutacijo psihe skozi faze flirtanja, kohabitacije in na koncu ločitve od substance. Opij govori o kemični ljubezenski zgodbi, o umetnem paradižu opija in sanj, o »popotovanju v smrt v evforičnem razpoloženju«, ki ga avtor ne more ne pozabiti ne preboleti. »Najlepše ure svojega življenja dolgujem opiju.«
Cocteau, ki o svoji literaturi in risbah govori kot o »ranah v počasnem posnetku«, v svojem delu pa med drugim citira Picassovo opredelitev vonja opija kot »najmanj neumnega vonja na svetu«, obravnava svojo odločitev za opij kot edino razumno odločitev, pri čemer se absolutno zoperstavi patologizaciji uživalca opija, ki se je epidemično razraščala za časa njegovega ustvarjanja. »Reči, da se odvisnik ponižuje s tem, ko preživlja svoje dneve v konstantnem stanju evforije, je podobno neumno kot govoriti o marmorju, ki ga je onečastil Michelangelo, papirju, onesnaženem s Shakespearom, ali o tišini, oskrunjeni z Bachovo glasbo.« Opij je za Cocteauja varovalo pred smrtjo srca, je sredstvo indukcije stanja modrosti, stanja varnosti, stanja artificielnega miru. Podobno kot De Quinceyev tudi Cocteaujev opij zdravi, celi rane in omogoča pobeg v svet estetske avtonomije, prividov in sanj, stran od buržoazne družbe in ponorelega sveta, ki mu vlada zakonodaja povprečnih in pohaba preostalih. Cocteaujev opij je Gilbert-Lecomtovo 'uničenje življenja v majhnih dozah', je Artaudova 'inkorporacija smrti v telo', je umetni ekvilibrij, ki pa ga je glede na alternativne opcije edino smiselno izbrati. Obenem so Cocteaujev opij sanje, ki jih ne gre pozabiti in ki puščajo za sabo praznino, ki se je nikdar več ne da zapolniti. »Odkar sem ozdravljen, se počutim revnega, praznega, bolnega in zlomljenega srca. Zdravniki so me z ozdravitvijo dobesedno predali samomoru.«
Naslednji avtor, ki se je zapisal v zgodovino literature o drogah, je seveda William S. Burroughs. Njegova dela je bistveno zaznamovala tako njegova vse življenje trajajoča odvisnost od opiatov kot tudi dejstvo, da je živel za časa prohibicije ter politično in medijsko generirane histerije glede ilegalnih drog, ki jima v svojih delih posveča precej pozornosti. Do njiju je brezkompromisno kritičen in da jasno vedeti, da prohibicija navkljub drugačnim pretenzijam zgolj generira probleme, ki naj bi jih odpravljala, ter je pravzaprav v veliki meri odgovorna za to, čemur Burroughs pravi 'džank virus'.
»Ko sem kljub prepovedi zapustil Združene države, je gonja za džankom izgledala kot nekaj novega, posebnega. Očitni so bili začetni znaki histerije, ki je kasneje zajela celotno državo. Louisiana je sprejela zakon, po katerem je bil zločin že samo to, da si bil narkoman. Ker ne čas in ne kraj nista bila natančneje omenjena in ker tudi pojem narkoman ni bil jasno opredeljen, tudi dokazi pri tako formuliranem zakonu niso bili ne nujni ne relevantni. Dokazi niso bili potrebni in kot iz tega izhaja, tudi sodna obravnava ne. To je zakonodaja policijske države, ki kaznuje samo stanje, v katerem se človek nahaja. Druge države so posnemale Louisiano. Protidžankijevski občutki so preraščali v paranoično obsedenost, na podoben način kot antisemitizem v času nacizma, in uvidel sem, da imam vsak dan manj možnosti, da se izognem obsodbi. Zato sem se odločil prekršiti dogovor, določen z varščino, in se za stalno naseliti izven Združenih držav.«
Burroughs v Džankiju s pozicije veterana drogiranja pomete z lažnimi predstavami, sproduciranih s strani centrov moči ter spromoviranih s pomočjo medijev in medicinske stroke. Gre za tip diskurza, ki generira strah, tako strah uživalca, da bo odkrit, kot tudi in predvsem strah javnosti pred uživalci drog. Ta strah je seveda funkcionalen, saj omogoča konstitucijo nenormalnega Drugega, ki ga 'normalna' večina nujno potrebuje za izgradnjo svoje identitete. Burroughsu je to dejstvo jasno, obenem pa je nanj, milo rečeno, alergičen. Alergičen je tudi na dominantno paradigmo instantne odvisnosti, na katero je uživalec nujno obsojen že ob prvi uporabi psihoaktivne substance. »Pogosto si postavljamo vprašanje: zakaj človek postane narkoman? Odgovor je, da človek običajno ne namerava postati narkoman. Ne zbudiš se nekega jutra in se odločiš postati narkoman. Potrebni so vsaj trije meseci rednega fiksanja, dvakrat dnevno, da se sploh navlečeš. […] Mislim, da ne pretiravam, če rečem, da je potrebno vsaj leto dni in nekaj sto injekcij, da postaneš zasvojen.«
Burroughs je skrajno kritičen tudi do moralne obsodbe uživalca s strani družbe in nasploh do paternalistično in prohibitivno orientiranega političnega in medijskega diskurza, pa vendar do določene, sicer minimalne mere še zmerom ostaja njegov ujetnik, kar se da najlažje opaziti že po samem slengovskem izrazu, s katerem konsistentno imenuje heroin. Gre za izraz džank, ki torej pomeni smeti oziroma umazanijo. Dejstvo je, da velja heroin v sodobni družbeni mitologiji za nekaj ultimativno umazanega, kar je vidno že v slengovskih besedah, s katerimi se ga imenuje, pa tudi sicer v samem diskurzu o njem: uživalec, ki ga preneha jemati, se 'očisti', abstinent od njega je torej 'čist', medtem ko je 'umazan džanki' skorajda ena beseda. O ilegalnih drogah se razmišlja kot o umazaniji, nečistoči oziroma kot o polutantih našega telesa. Uradna politika v sklopu vojne proti drogam le-te pozicionira kot nekaj, kar je treba sovražiti in absolutno zavračati; droge ne morejo biti zgolj nekaj nevarnega ali neumnega, temveč je nujno, da jih javnost percepira tudi kot nekaj umazanega, nekaj, kar je uporabljano s strani konsistentno zanemarjenih ljudi v nujno nagnusnih okoliščinah.
Za Burroughsa je heroin mnogo več kot zgolj farmakologija. Džank zanj ni sredstvo za povečevanje življenjskih užitkov, ni občasen kick, ki bi ga sprožilo dovajanje diacetilmorfina v živčni sistem. Džank je način življenja, je celična enačba, ki tistega, ki ga jemlje, nauči nekaterih neusmiljenih in splošno veljavnih dejstev. »Jemanje džanka me je veliko naučilo: videl sem življenje, odmerjeno s kapalkami morfijeve raztopine. […] Naučil sem se celičnega stoicizma, ki te ga nauči džank.« Burroughs podobno kot De Quincey in Cocteau svoje kemične afere ne obžaluje, vendar pa je tudi ne idealizira. Romantizacija samega akta drogiranja in odvisnosti je z Burroughsom dokončno končana. »Džank vzame vse in ne daje ničesar razen varnosti pred krizo. Vsake toliko sem se podrobneje zamislil nad tem, kako ravnam s samim sabo in se odločil za zdravljenje. Kadar imaš na razpolago obilo džanka, izgleda odvajanje preprosto. Rečeš si: 'Fiksanje me sploh več ne zabava. Vseeno je, če preneham.' Ko pa zabredeš v krizo, je slika povsem drugačna.«
Bolj kot tematizacija užitka, varnosti in miru, ki je ključna za De Quinceya in Cocteauja, je pri Burroughsu v ospredju nazorna predstavitev brutalne realnosti odvisnosti. »Ko si enkrat navlečen, izgubi vse drugo ves pomen. Življenje se skrči na džank, na zadnji fiks in na iskanje naslednjega, na zalogo in recepte, na šprice in igle. Zasvojencu se pogosto zdi, da živi normalno življenje in da je džank nekaj postranskega. […] Vse dokler mu ga ne zmanjka, se sploh ne zaveda, kaj mu džank pomeni.« Ko minejo kemično inducirani medeni tedni, se začne privatni pekel, ki je skonstituiran pretežno iz gonje za izgubljenim užitkom in mirom prvega fiksa, ki se ga nikdar več ne da doseči in ki bo zmerom ostal predmet nostalgičnega spomina in žalovanja. Odvisnik je vržen v agonijo, ki postane konstitutivni element njegove realnosti in ki se je ne da odpraviti, tudi z abstinenco ne. »Ko prekineš z džankom, se ti zdi vse nezanimivo, spominjaš pa se urnika fiksov, statične groze džanka, življenja, ki si si ga trikrat dnevno dovajal v roko.«
Čemu se torej potemtakem posameznik sploh prične drogirati, glede na to, da je o možnih pogubnih posledicah konzumacije drog informiran tudi, če ni nikoli bral Burroughsa? Slednji je prepričan, da je pri zadevi ključno pomanjkanje interesa za karkoli drugega.
»Seveda lahko postavimo tudi naslednje vprašanje: zakaj pa si sploh poizkusil narkotike? Zakaj si jih jemal toliko časa, da si postal zasvojen? Odvisen od narkotikov postaneš zato, ker nimaš zadostne motivacije za karkoli drugega. Džank zmaguje zaradi tega pomanjkanja. Sam sem ga poizkusil iz radovednosti. Preganjal sem se naokrog in se fiksal, kadarkoli sem uspel kaj nabaviti. Končalo se je z zasvojenostjo. Večina narkomanov, s katerimi sem se pogovarjal, je poročala o isti izkušnji. Nihče se ni mogel spomniti, zakaj se je začel drogirati. Postopali so okrog, dokler niso postali zasvojeni. […] Ne odločiš se, da boš postal narkoman. Nekega jutra se zbudiš ves slab zaradi pomanjkanja droge, in zasvojen si.«
Burroughsovo delo Džanki je sicer bistveno za razumevanje tako odvisnosti kot tudi družbene pozicije džankija, ki ga je proizvedla prohibicija in histerična gonja proti drogam, v Združenih državah omogočena leta 1937 s sprejemom Harrisonovega zakona. Burroughs je skozi svojo tematizacijo teorije odvisnosti, zbazirane okrog 'algebre potrebe' (katere aksiomi sicer niso skladni z medicinskim dejstvi), omogočil diskurz, ki je predstavljal alternativo dominantni doktrini kriminalizacije drog in predvsem njihovih uživalcev. Burroughs je sicer pomenil še eno novost na terenu prevpraševanja in razbijanja tabujev: bil je namreč prvi literat, ki se je javno identificiral tako kot džanki kot tudi kot homoseksualec, torej kot dvojni Drugi, kar je bilo za tiste čase praktično nepojmljivo. Z Burroughsom torej stopnja alienacije odvisnika od drog doseže raven, ki je literarna umetnost pred njim absolutno ne pozna, s tem pa pripravi tudi teren za Alexandra Trocchija, ki bi ga lahko označili kot do konca zradikaliziranega Burroughsa in ki pravzaprav v končni fazi ni nič drugega kot nujni produkt politične in socialne realnosti druge polovice preteklega stoletja.
Alexander Trocchi je širši javnosti razmeroma nepoznan avtor, ki je za časa svojega življenja večino medijske pozornosti prejel zavoljo svojega načina življenja. Le-ta je bil tudi za umetniško sceno šestdesetih let, ki se je sicer smatrala za relativno liberalno, prehudo radikalen, da bi ga lahko sprejela medse. Trocchi, škotski beatnik, pisec noči, teme, anihilacije, razbitja in postajanja niča, je personificiral polimorfno odstopanje od praktično vseh družbenih norm: seks z enonogo žensko, prostituiranje svoje žene, kazenski pregon in grožnja smrtne kazni zavoljo oskrbe mladoletnika z narkotiki, injeciranje heroina na live programu ameriške nacionalne televizije – če bi morali z eno besedo opisati, kaj je Trocchi predstavljal za svojo dobo, bi lahko nedvomno rekli: Trocchi je predstavljal predvsem šok.
Trocchijevo delo Kajnova knjiga je bilo tako kot Burroughsov Goli obed prepovedano zaradi obscenosti in podobno kot Burroughsova dela je tudi Kajnovo knjigo bistveno zaznamovala avtorjeva izkušnja odvisnosti od heroina, ki je sicer trajala do njegove smrti. Za Kajnovo knjigo, enako kot pri Džankiju gre tudi tukaj za roman-a-cléf, je značilna bolj ali manj popolna odsotnost kakršnegakoli dogajanja. Roman, centriran okrog v newyorškem pristanišču živečega heroinskega odvisnika Joeja Necchija in njegove odisejade v iskanju naslednjega fiksa in kakšne vsaj za silo kooperativne žile, ki še ni dokončno kolapsirala, je nekakšna bizarna kombinacija Camusovih, Kafkinih, Blanchotovih in beatniških del, je refleksija osamljenosti in praznine modernega človeka, potop v svet absurda in eksistencialnega angsta, je nihilistična Biblija per se, pri čemer je za Trocchija ključno orožje v njegovi nihilistični opravi prav heroin: »Ne obstaja nobena forma sistematičnega nihilizma, ki bi se lahko primerjala z nihilizmom ameriškega džankija.«
Čeravno so kritiki speljali povezave na De Quinceya in Baudelaira, bi v Trocchijevem delu le s težavo našli kakšno posebno romantizacijo življenja heroinskega odvisnika. Le-ta se po Trocchiju jasno zaveda, da je »najbolj osamljen človek na svetu«. Džanki je izoliran, alieniran in socialno impotenten, je outsider po izbiri ter po novem preko drog tudi po nuji; je podobno kot pri De Quinceyu in Cocteauju genij, ki je v farmakologiji našel rešitev, klatež pod površjem 'normalnega' sveta, večni homme révolté , ki je nasilen, neodpustljiv in dosledno kritičen tako do sebe kot do buržuazne družbe, znotraj katere živi in jo prezira. Heroin predstavlja izhod iz nje, predstavlja anestezijo, izolacijo, sedativ, zapolnjevanje vrzeli, pomeni spremembo perspektive ter obenem konec strahu, beganja in negotovosti:
»V določenih trenutkih se zalotim, kako pojmujem vso svoje življenje kot vodečo k aktualnemu trenutku, pri čemer je sedanjost vse, kar moram potrditi. Ne ubadam se z vprašanjem v tu-in-zdaj, ko ležim na svojem pogradu in sem zavoljo vpliva heroina povsem nedotakljiv. To je ena izmed prednosti te droge, to, da izprazni takšna in podobna vprašanja od vsega tesnobnega, jih transportira v drugo regijo, ki je brezbolečinska in teoretična. […] V njej človek ni več groteskno vključen v postajanje, temveč preprosto je.«
Posebno pozornost Trocchi v svojem delu namenja mračni estetiki samega akta drogiranja: »Ni samo vprašanje kicka. Ritual sam, prašek v žlici, majhen bombažen filter, uporabljene vžigalice, kipeča tekočina, ki je skozi filter potegnjena v injekcijo, pas okrog roke, da žila izstopi, fiks pogosto počasen, ker človek stoji z iglo v veni in pušča nihanje nivoja tekočine v injekciji, vse dokler je v njej več krvi kot heroina – vse to ni brez razloga; vse to je rojeno iz spoštovanja do celotne kemije alienacije.«
Za Trocchija konzumacija opiatov predstavlja predvsem revolt zoper sterilno in klimatizirano moro buržuazne družbe, vendar pa se ne slepi o tem, da se je obljuba svobode, ki jo je heroin prinašal s sabo, realizirala kot karkoli drugega kot predvsem nova oblika zasužnjenosti, da se je občutje odtujenosti, ki naj bi ga džank odpravil, pravzaprav le še potenciralo ter da je praznina, ki naj bi jo zapolnil, rezultirala zgolj v še večji luknji. Vseeno pa Trocchi tako v svojem življenju kot v svojem romanu pride do zaključka, da džanki ni ne kriminalec ne pacient, pač pa predvsem genij in vizionar. Heroin je torej za Trocchija to, kar je bil opij za Cocteauja – je odločitev, ki jo je preprosto treba sprejeti.
Če potegnemo črto pod povedanim, brez težav opazimo, da je sporočilna vrednost vseh obravnavanih literarnih del bolj ali manj ista: groze ne gre locirati v strup, ki je hkrati zdravilo, temveč jo moramo iskati predvsem v zeitgeistu in v diaforični naravi človeka, ki ima za posledico trajno občutje necelovitosti, izločenosti, negotovosti in eksistencialnega nemira. Heroin je potemtakem zgolj simptom človekove bolne psihološke in družbene realnosti, obenem pa ga gre obravnavati predvsem kot improviziran substitut, kot korektiv in transfigurator ter kot sredstvo, ki se trudi zapolniti akutni manko, ki pa mu je že v strukturo vpisano, da bo pri tem, vsaj dolgoročno gledano, najverjetneje neslavno pogorel.
V primerjavi z dominantnim političnim in medicinskim diskurzom, ki odvisnika od drog obravnavata predvsem kot nezrelega, nedoletnega in bolnega uporabnika kemičnih bergel, kot kriminalca in pacienta ter kot emocionalnega invalida in družbenega parazita, je pozicija De Quinceya, Cocteauja, Burroughsa in Trocchija radikalno drugačna; ne samo, da ne pristajajo na pozicijo inferiornega Drugega, ki jim jo pripisujejo mediji, politika in medicina, temveč povečini tudi zelo eksplicitno izražajo mnenje, da so med drugim tudi zavoljo praktične izkušnje z opiati 'normalni' večini pravzaprav vsestransko superiorni. Gre torej za attitude, ki ga lahko za konec ponazorimo kar s citatom Jeana Cocteauja: »Mene ni treba ozdraviti opija. Mene je treba ozdraviti inteligence.«
To view Lana's original post please visit:
www.radiostudent.si/kultura/teorema/imamo-vero-v-strup

The Museum informing period productions

The Museum of Drugs has a growing reputation amongst academic circles and the media. As part of our mission we provide expert support to universities, colleges and television and film production companies, ensuring that their work is suitably informed. Recently the Museum has acted as a learned resource for a new period drama involving a character in the early 20th Century who was a consumer of opium. In contacting us, the production company affiliated to Tiger Aspect were keen to maintain their integrity through accurate representation of this widely available substance of the time. We were able to support their work with a balanced report, which we have included below for the benefit of our readership. The production company were able to make a small donation to the Museum which has gone straight to furthering our collection and research.

'Opium production, including poppy cultivation, and usage was widespread in England prior to the 20th Century, with areas such as the Fenlands being well known through its association. Britain had gone to war with China on two occasions in the 19th Century in order to enforce trade. The Opium Wars as they became known were a result of Chinese reluctance to trade with Britain, who seized upon the idea of selling Indian opium to China as a way of ensuring that once addicted they would be willing to trade openly. When the Chinese became alarmed at the rising numbers of the population who were becoming addicted they retaliated resulting in Britain declaring war.

It was in response to the emerging temperance movements of the late 19th Century that opium production and use started to become a matter of concern, arguably as a result of its impact on productivity in an increasingly industrialised world. Early legislation controlling the supply and use of opium were enshrined in the Pharmacy Act 1868. This included preparations such as raw opium, laudanum and other popular tinctures. As a result it was only permissible to purchase such drugs over the counter, although undoubtedly there prospered a black market.

Ironically, given the earlier wars, calls for temperance linked the use of opium in Britain with the influx of Chinese immigrants to her ports. Stories of opium dens started to appear in publications such as Harpers Weekly, where they characterised the Chinese as a cold and distant race, lascivious in their intentions towards respectable British society. Such stories were not unknown in more credible literature such as Dickens’s Edwin Drood or Doyle’s Sherlock Homes, the latter would often drift off to a favourite opium den in search of release from the torment of his genius, and to while his time with London’s criminal underbelly in search of clues.

The dawn of the 20th Century saw increasing intolerance towards the use of opium. Paradoxically it’s derivative, morphine, was widely used as a major painkiller in on the battlefields of northern France where Europe’s sons were witnessing slaughter on an unprecedented scale.

This era in which you are characterising your story is one of the most fascinating of all episodes in the history of drug use. High profile cases such as the death of Billie Carleton 1918, a West End actress who was widely reported to use both opium and cocaine, and Freda Kempton 1922, a dance instructress, flapper girl and heavy cocaine user, led to widespread moral panic in the media. The real concern was more about the fact that they were both white women, comparatively emancipated for the time, living on independent financial means, mixing with men of other race and living outside of the grasp of a paternalistic Edwardian society. Their deaths came to typify what would happen if Edwardian society failed to gain control and put women back by the hearth instead of employed in the industries whose traditional workforce lay buried in shell craters along the trench lines of the Somme and Arras.

Depending on the gender of your character, this cultural backdrop would provide an intriguing storyline. The issue of race is all-important, as many of the Empire’s subjects returned from fighting in the First World War to live in the motherland. Britain’s decimated population and the influx of migrant workers inevitably led to inter race relations. Society failed to see the benefits of such multiculturalism and focused instead on the dangers of drugs and their use, by Chinese men in particular, to ensnare white ‘vulnerable’ women.

The responsibility in characterising an opium user for television is to not perpetuate the moral panic, whilst acknowledging that drug use was very prevalent then and was indeed a feature of those who either sought to forget the hardships of war, or else seized on their use as part of the frivolity of the emerging jazz age.

Billie Carleton accessed her supply of opium through her friends and acquaintances, two of which were white British and another who happened to be of Egyptian nationality. At the inquest into her death the court heard how these acquaintances had accessed opium through a Chinese couple that lived in Bristol. Ever since the supply of opium to the Chinese in the 19th Century it had been a popular drug of choice and had found it’s way back to Britain via the docks of London, Bristol and Liverpool.

Undoubtedly Billie and her friends would have purchased opium already prepared for smoking. Billie would have attended parties at the homes of friends and smoked opium there, rather than going to the opium dens of Limehouse that have been so characterised in fiction.

If you wanted your character to frequent opium dens, these would have varied from a simple mattress on a floor in a backroom with someone on hand to keep the candles lit and the opium ready for smoking, to the more luxurious Parisian style with cushions and Chinese drapes. The price varied accordingly as did the clientele.

During the early part of the 20th Century opium derivatives had already been synthesised to create heroin and this was widely used with hypodermics. It would be reasonable for your character to have used opiate drugs in this way.

Notwithstanding, if you wish to go down the route of opium smoking, then it is likely that they would have had access to all the accoutrements that you describe your art department producing. Opium pipes of the Chinese style, long stem with bowl protruding at right angles two thirds of the way along, would have been imported by Chinese migrant workers. Many of these pipes were being destroyed en-masse by the Chinese authorities as opium use carried penalties of death in China. These would have come into the hands of Western smokers and collectors, this was the period of Art Nouveau/ Art Deco and Eastern influences were popular.

Having acquired a pipe and accoutrements, the user would have reclined to smoke a pea sized amount of the substance applied with a long pin called a ‘yen-hock’. The application involves holding the metal bowl of the pipe over the candle until very hot. The pea-sized amount of opium would be rolled and heated above the flame and then inserted into the hole in the bowl where it would vaporise. The reclined user would then inhale deeply several times as the opium is used up and they drift in and out of consciousness. In the modern day parlance of the heroin user this would be described as ‘gouching out’.

In terms of smoke, because the opium is actually vaporised it wouldn't have produced vast billowy clouds of smoke as often depicted, rather some wispy vapour trails. The production process of making the opium would have more likely happened at source, probably India, where Malwa and Patna opium had been cultivated by the British in the 19th Century prior to export to China. Turkish opium was also highly prized for its quality.

In the same way as cocaine is produced in Columbia and Mexico before export to western markets it would have been unlikely for British consumers of opium in the period 1900 – 1920 to have accessed the drug in it’s raw state, requiring production. They would have purchased it ready to use.

The quantity used by your character would depend on how compulsive a user they were as opposed to recreational use. They may have been someone who binged when the opportunity arose and were then able to stay away from it for days or weeks whilst they returned to normal duties. Some people would have used opium throughout a weekend, at night after they came back from the burgeoning clubs of the west end in order to relax. Billie Carleton was certainly a poly-drug user experienced in the use of opium and cocaine as well as the Veronal prescribed by her doctor. She would have been conversant with the effects of cocaine as a stimulant and opium as a depressant of the central nervous system and would have used both according to environment and setting. Cocaine was a club drug, used for partying, staying up all night and dancing to the ‘wild jungle rhythms’ associated with jazz music by the media. Opium would have provided the after party come down, to help ease the jitteriness of excessive cocaine consumption. You may wish to reflect this in your characterisation as it draws an interesting parallel with modern day drug consumption.

I hope this is of help to your work, however please do not hesitate to contact me should you wish to clarify anything further. The context is always important so I have tried to cover some of the essential background to the use of opium'.

The Dual Symbolism of the Poppy

A British delegation comprising key members of the newly formed coalition government caused huge offence to the Chinese when they sported Remembrance Poppies during a visit to the capital city Beijing back in 2010. Amongst the group looking to further British interests in the rapidly expanding economy of China, the Prime Minister David Cameron took the lead in refusing to remove the iconic symbol of remembrance.

In a fragmented moment of intercultural communication the British members of parliament were unaware of the inflammatory nature of the poppy to the Chinese whose memory of the two Opium Wars of the Nineteenth Century is all to clear.

The wars fought by the British between 1839 - 1842 and 1856 - 1860 were an overt bid to champion imperialism in the Far East. Emerging global expansion had brought Britain to the forefront of international trade and military might. The Union Jack flew over much of the world yet the multinational companies such as the East India Company, Jardine Matheson and Peninsular & Oriental (P&O) had yet to succeed in breaking into the closed markets of the Chinese Empire. Beyond the port of Canton, the Chinese viewed the outside world with suspicion. The 'Red Barbarians', as they referred to the British sailors who arrived to collect cargos of tea and porcelain, were kept beyond the Chinese quarters of the city walls to prevent their contaminating the customs and traditions of the Quing Dynasty.

Silver flowed in one direction only and with little else to export to the self sufficient Chinese, the British merchants looked to opium as a product to trade from India. Well known for its addictive qualities the merchants understood that once the product was established through a network of corrupt port officials and smugglers, demand for it would grow.

The trade dominated the networks between India and China throughout the early part of the Nineteenth Century with tons of opium exported from the Patna and Malwa region of the Indian continent. Despite the decrees of the Chinese Emperor, making opium use a capital offence, it flourished and predictably dependency ensued.

The Emperor, compelled by the drain on Chinese silver and the growing addiction of the population, sent Lin Zexu, his trusted advisor, to the province around Canton to investigate the source of the trade. Having identified foreign merchants at the root of the problem Lin Zexu quickly encircled the trade quarters demanding that ex patriot representatives hand over the stock.

A stand off ended when the British capitulated and allowed the remaining chests of opium to be withdrawn and destroyed. It was not long before pressure groups lobbied parliament back in London to consent to a naval force being sent in defence of the assets taken by the Chinese. The first of two Opium Wars commenced with resultant naval attacks along the coastline of China, until a treaty was drawn up conceding Hong Kong to the British Crown in recompense.

In a parliamentary debate William Gladstone, wondered if there had ever been:

"a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated to cover this country with permanent disgrace, I do not know."

Tensions between the British merchant fleets and the Canton authorities remained over the following decade until October 1856 when the Chinese authorities seized a vessel called the 'Arrow', which had been engaged in piracy. The British consul in Canton demanded the immediate release of the crew and an apology for the insult to the British flag. When hostilities remained and the Chinese withdrew the terms of the earlier treaty of Nanking the British government sent a

further naval force into Chinese waters, bringing about the Second Opium War.

This time the French entered into the fray on the British side and a land assault was launched from Hong Kong, engaging in a number of military confrontations before ground troops marched upon Peking. The Emperor finally capitulated and agreed to a treaty allowing extensive trade rights across China, but not before the Anglo-French armies had laid waste to the Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan) looting a vast array of priceless items, some of which now adorn the displays in Buckingham Palace.

It is hard to imagine the impact such defeat would have had on British culture had the military action been reversed, alongside the resulting loss of British life and the wanton looting and destruction of our heritage. Whilst the red poppies that adorn the lapels of our proud population, seeking to remember the war dead, have their origins in the fields of Flanders, Remembrance Sunday offers an opportunity to reflect not just on our own soldiers who gave their lives for our nation, but also those caught up in armed conflict around the world both past and present.

Ultimately the supply of opium to China was replaced by other exports. Parliament had come under increasing pressure to challenge the companies involved in the trade of opium in the Far East and the likes of P&O and Jardine Matheson turned their attention to increasingly lucrative markets in assets and supply chains.

Ironically, as Western attitudes towards drugs changed with the advent of the Pharmacy Act and later the Defence of the Realm Act in the early part of the Twentieth Century, the Chinese were demonised as the 'insidious' purveyors of opium and cocaine throughout clandestine networks which spread across cities such as London and New York. In an almost Stalinist rewriting of history, the Opium Wars were quickly forgotten in the British psyche, along with the cynical capitalist trade in opium from which they were born. A race that fell foul of the addictive properties of the opium poppy at the hands of British networks became synonymous with its supply as Chinese migration spread to Western capitals in the aftermath of the First World War.

The prohibitionist movements on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean seized on the emerging moral panics defined by drug use, inter race relations and the emancipation of women, in their bid to bring about tighter legislation outlawing drug use. At the heart of these moral panics were lurid stories about Chinese nationals 'ensnaring vulnerable white women' in an intoxicating mix of premeditated seduction and drug use during a heady jazz age.

Small wonder that Cameron and his party of trade delegates were met with skepticism when they embarked on their tour of Chinese industry in 2010.

Amy Winehouse and the origins of the drug moral panic

Like many of the ascending stars before her who bore a similar fate, the tragic end to the brilliant but short-lived career of Amy Winehouse has polarised public opinion.

Predictably the social network sites have been littered with spontaneous commentary, some reflecting the views of the ignorant or else the plain cynical. All vying to be the first to find a timely joke amid the word search of lyrics on her album sleeves or else pronouncing to their cyber audience that the world is a better place without another addict in our midst. The desire for instant self-gratification in cyber space mirrors the instantaneous nature of the very drugs being described.

In contrast the more compassionate bloggers and social commentators seek meaning from the tragedy, how could this have happened, why wasn’t it prevented and how can we stop this happening again?

As Russell Brand rightly states in his tribute post to the singer, ‘Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today’.

The sad reality is stark, Amy Winehouse died at the flat where she lived in North London on her own, sometime during a humid Saturday afternoon. Nothing can now change that fact and her lyrics, brought to life by her unique intonation, take on an ethereal, haunting quality almost overnight.

Whilst the details have yet to be released by the coroner there is little doubt in the minds of the media and the general public that Amy died as a result of her spiralling substance use, be it drugs or alcohol. Few have responded with real surprise, her drug use was already a well known fact, the focus over recent years of the same derision and uncharitable humour that manifested in certain quarters of the internet during the immediate hours following her death.

Amy was cremated in the Jewish tradition at Golders Green Crematorium on the 26^th July, an occasion attended by her grieving family who have found themselves at the centre of a maelstrom that few can struggle to comprehend.

Little more than five miles away from Golders Green Crematorium is the site of another cemetery. Built in the nineteenth century along the architectural lines of the fashionable Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, Kensal Green Cemetery hosts the resting place of a number of notable figures, including the writer Willkie Collins.

Buried in the intervening years between the First and Second World War a story bearing similar characteristics to that of the late Amy WInehouse unfolded in a media moral panic that swept across the newspaper headlines. It is a story that ended in a quiet corner of Kensal Green Cemetery in 1922.

Freda Kempton was a dancer who lived in the twilight world of London’s burgeoning jazz scene. Sleeping through the daytime at her flat in Westbourne Grove, Freda would rise in the afternoon, sometimes spending time with her much loved nephew, before preparing herself for a night of dancing to the latest hot sounds that brought the Flapper Girls onto the floors of Tottenham Court Road’s dance clubs.

Other girls would remark on Freda’s distinctive dance style, which set her apart from her peers, whilst her landlady reported that the young dancer had a peculiar tendency to grind her teeth when she encountered her in the hallway returning tired from a night still reverberating from the distinctive beat of frenzied jazz rhythms.

Few of the people intimate with Freda were aware that her ability to stay up dancing all night and her telltale perpetual jaw movement were symptomatic of her excessive cocaine use.

Discovered as an alkaloid derivative of the coca erythroxylum plant, indigenous to South America and first isolated in 1859 by Albert Niemann of Gottingen University, cocaine was already well understood as a powerful stimulant of the central nervous system.

None other than Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, had extolled its virtues as a panacea for common ills, including fatigue and various forms of neuroses.

However, by the time Freda Kempton stepped onto the dance floor of the notorious 43 Club on Gerrard Street, Soho, cocaine possession and use was already outlawed in both the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

One might be forgiven for assuming the rationale for legislating against drugs in the early part of the Twentieth Century was a direct result of the same health concerns that we harbor today, underpinned by the ‘Just Say No’ campaigns of the 1980s.

The truth is curiously more malevolent and is directly linked with the paternalism of the Edwardians as they struggled to come to terms with the shifting landscape of society and the total annihilation of the bloody First World War.

The newspapers of the time carried stories of soldiers returning from the front ‘crazed’ through consumption of ‘Forced March Tablets’ aimed at enabling fatigued soldiers to cover longer distances and arrive on the battlefield ready to fight, pills that contained cocaine as a key ingredient. At the same time reports appeared of Canadian soldiers openly selling cocaine in Leicester Square in a bid to supplement their service rations. Cocaine and other drugs were viewed suspiciously as imports into the United Kingdom, brought back by soldiers whose experiences were beyond the pail of comprehension and who now appeared alien to those who poured out onto the streets to welcome them home, or otherwise symbolic of the new world, a world which was moving at a faster pace and which threatened to corrupt Englishness with its slang terms and hedonistic jazz craze.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean citizens of the United States breakfasted to lurid newspaper tales of black men who had gone on a rampage of violence having first taken cocaine, as if the drug had somehow awakened an inherent physical threat to an unsuspecting white population.

Played out as a backdrop to the sensationalist journalism of this period was an encroaching reality, a reality that grated on the psyche of a paternalistic society: whilst the war had stolen the lives of men on a hitherto unprecedented scale it had also served to emancipate women in the same breath.

Drug overdoses such as those of Freda Kempton and Billie Carleton, a stage actress who had died several years earlier on the night of the Great Victory Ball in 1918, were sensational. It was revealed in the coroner’s report that Billie Carleton had died as a result of a cocaine overdose, though as Marek Kohn rightly points out in his excellent book ‘Dope Girls, The Birth of the British Drug Underground’, it was more likely the result of Veronal, a barbiturate supplied by her doctor. Notwithstanding, her death galvanized public anxiety, which became amplified through the media. The message was clear and simple, there were inherent dangers if society stood by and watched whilst women strayed from the safety of their homes and their responsibilities to their husbands and families. Both Billie Carleton and Freda Kempton were airbrushed by the media, their modernity and emancipation replaced by the imagery of a butterfly upon a wheel, too innocent to withstand the harsh reality of a world beyond the hearth.

Drug use became the common denominator by which society could articulate its fear of female emancipation, inter-race relationships and sexuality. The inquiries into the deaths of both Billie Carleton and Freda Kempton gravely pointed at their relationship with drugs, their independent lifestyles, relationships they had with men from different ethnic backgrounds. In the case of Billie Carleton her close friendship with Reginald DeVeulle, a gentleman whose occupation as a dress designer and his involvement in an earlier scandal involving a cross dressing party, was dredged up in court to highlight the dangers of fraternizing with men of dubious sexuality. Drug use was the common thread, knitting together the disparate fears and prejudices of a world that was changing beyond all recognition.

For Freda Kempton the inquiry highlighted her relationship with Brilliant Chang, a restaurateur in the West End of London. Freda had been acquainted with Chang in the weeks before her death and the newspapers revealed how she had purchased cocaine from Chang on the night she died. Chang was eventually deported from the United Kingdom, but not before the frenzied media had described in characteristic xenophobic visceral how Chang was purportedly ensnaring vulnerable white women into a life far from the ideals of their Victorian and Edwardian forbearers.

‘Following the verdict of deportation - 'some of the girls rushed to Chang, patted his back, and one, more daring than the rest, fondled the Chinaman's black, smooth hair and passed her fingers slowly through it' (Empire News, 1922).

Whilst legislation began to emerge on the heels of the public reaction into the deaths of Billie Carleton and Freda Kempton, it was not until Henry J Anslinger set up the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in America that the phenomenon of drug use became a more potent tool for political force.

Armed with a talent for manipulating the media, Anslinger set out on an unprecedented campaign for power through a well-orchestrated crusade to defend the morality of decent white Americans. By targeting as ‘dope dealers’ anyone suspected as communists, Mexican immigrants, the counter cultures emerging out of the jazz scene and anyone else who didn’t fit with the values of the white hegemony, Anslinger built his empire of narcotic enforcers.

Films warning the population at large that drugs, such as cannabis would turn sisters or daughters into morally questionable vamps hell bent on thrills, or else waifs cowering from the light in darkened bedsits, waiting in vain for their dealers to mercifully arrive with their next hit, captured the fears of Bible Belt America.

With titles such as ‘Reefer Madness’ and ‘The Cocaine Fiends’ few could question the effects of that first dabble and Anslinger, ever keen to promote the urgency of the Federal Bureau of Narcotic’s mission, would readily lend his weight to endorsing this genre of exploitation movie.

The profound impact of such propaganda has had an unprecedented impact in the years since, leading to the creation of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 and ultimately the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 in the United Kingdom.

In the fortieth year since the Misuse of Drugs Act our knowledge of the complex relationship that drugs have with the neurological pathways in our brains has developed in a way that Anslinger could never have foreseen. We understand that drugs lock into key areas of our neurological system, often referred to as ‘pleasure circuits’. Simply put these complex neural messaging centres are essential to human survival, they guide our primal instincts, the need to eat, the desire to sleep, the fight and flight response and ultimately the need to procreate, thereby ensuring the continuation of the species. If the pharmacopeia of naturally and synthetically produced drugs light up these areas of the brain is it small wonder that they result in a compulsion to take more? The brain is sending an unadulterated message to the user, ‘I need heroin, crack, amphetamine to survive’.

Whilst learning in this field of science is advancing in an unprecedented way, our adjectives for people who use drugs remain firmly shackled to the moral panics of the early part of the twentieth century, a language still littered with prejudice and myth, influenced by the then media, the rise of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement and the powerhouses of the global enforcement administrations.

Take for example the term ‘junkie’ a term with its origins in the metal trade, scrap which heroin users sold to support their habit during the nineteen hundreds, not dissimilar to the term ‘tinkers’, used in the past to describe travelling communities.

Perhaps unwittingly language has perpetuated the dehumanizing of people who use drugs, ‘smack-head’, ‘crack-head’, ‘alcoholic’, ‘waster’, ‘druggie’ the list goes on and on, the staple of many an ice-breaker exercise in drug awareness training courses up and down the country.

We refer to people who use drugs as ‘unclean’ and observe from our pedestals their often repeated attempts to get ‘clean’, imagery not that far removed from the National Socialist Party’s descriptions of Jewish people in the 1930s. As a result drug users become something other, outsiders from the accepted conventions of society. They become, in the parlance of the forefathers of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, people who have a disease.

In much the same way, links between drug use and race are as inextricably linked today as they were at the time of Freda Kempton and Brilliant Chang. Take for example the overt racism of Anslinger’s rhetoric during the 1950s

'There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others’.

As repulsive as this quote may sound to the contemporary ear, it is worth noting that such links between the vulnerability of white women, immigration and drug use remains a staple of the modern media moral panic, a phenomenon as familiar today as in the days of Freda Kempton. The following provides a recent excerpt from a Judge’s summing up of a case involving a young black man, as reported in a London newspaper,

‘The case has everything about it that is un-English, drugs, knives, guns and the exploitation of whores’.

In his summing up of the case the newspaper went on to describe how the perpetrator, a young black man, had benefitted from growing up with adoptive white parents in a middle class ‘respectable mainly white area of Leeds’. Despite such ‘blessings’ the young man quickly found himself in trouble with the police.

In the United States today sentencing for possession of crack cocaine, by comparison with cocaine powder, carries considerably stiffer penalties. The net result is that poorer communities with higher proportions of black and Hispanic people are much more likely to end up in prison, whilst white middle class Americans who use powdered cocaine on a recreational night are far less likely.

So whilst Russell Brand concludes in his blog that ‘Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death’, it would appear that a person’s ethnic background will play a significant factor in this outcome.

In the immediate aftermath following the death of Amy Winehouse the tabloid newspapers scrabble for any information. Was her death the result of drugs, her heavy use of alcohol and the damage to her body resulting from this combination? Does society have a responsibility to protect and if so what is the mechanism by which this should happen?
Like a nation caught in the aftermath of some terrible natural disaster the default is to act instinctively, driven by a need for answers, the desire for someone or something to blame. Only then might we absolve ourselves from having failed in our paternalistic duty.

Perhaps it is time to take a step back, though, and pause before jumping on the back of the well-worn clichés and moral panics that have defined our relationship as a society to drug use over the last hundred years. As Russel Brand points out, isn’t it time we started to look at drugs as a health issue rather than a matter of criminal justice?

By taking drugs out of the criminal justice system and into the realms of health we instantly take control back from the networks of organized criminals, moving drugs into a tighter legislative framework.

As Transform, the charity campaigning for a review of drug law, states in its publication ‘After the War on Drugs’, ‘Only legalizing the most widely used drugs, subjecting them to strict quality assessment and making them available through controlled outlets will allow people to make intelligent choices’.

Isn’t it time to take back control of our health? And in a world outraged by the deceptions amidst elements of our media, who are prepared to stop at nothing to make headlines, isn’t it time we put a stop to the moral panics that keep millions of people worldwide trapped into a cycle of addiction?

For further information on the work of Transform please visit www.tdpf.org.uk

Billie Carleton, Freda Kempton and the Birth of the Drug Moral Panic

As the Edwardian era gave way to the horrors of the Great War, British society stood on the brink of unprecedented change. Whilst tens of thousands soldiers died on the battlefields of Ypres, the Somme and Arras, many of the British women back home discovered a new found freedom in employment traditionally reserved for men. The efforts of such women in sustaining the industry of war, in often-perilous conditions, has only been officially recognised by the British Government as recently as 2009.

Essential though the efforts of these women had been in securing a victory in the war against Germany, the aftermath of the Great War saw a creeping reaction to female emancipation, as soldiers returned from the conflict to find women keen to maintain their status and financial independence. This was the era of suffrage as women stood to defy the paternalism of the Victorians.

Another prominent feature in the changing cultural landscape of the Great War was migration. The last bastions of the British Empire were called upon to support the allied forces in their campaign across Northern France, including around 100,000 Chinese laborers, many of whom dug trenches along the battlefronts. In the aftermath of the Great War migrant workers settled in Britain along with hundreds of other workers arriving from across the globe, drawn to the ports of the Great British Empire in search of a better, more prosperous life.

The 11th November 1918 saw the end to the terrible carnage that had so dominated Europe in the preceding four years of warfare. As soldiers returned from the battlefield faced with the task of reintegrating with a population who were unable to comprehend their experiences, Great Britain turned its attention to celebrating the victory in Northern France.

An actress, Billie Carleton, who was an up and coming star of the West End, attended one such celebration, The Great Victory Ball at the Royal Albert Hall. In the twilight world of the Theatre, Billie Carleton had become a user of drugs including opium and cocaine. In addition, she had become a regular user of prescription drugs supplied to her by her doctor, and was becoming, what might be described in the parlance of today, a polydrug user. On the night of the Great Victory Ball, Billie Carleton was to return to her flat at the back of the Savoy. Having spent the evening using cocaine, Billie was later to die of a drug overdose in the early hours of the morning.

Whilst it is worth noting that her overdose was more likely attributable to the prescribed drugs that she was taking at the behest of her doctor than the cocaine she had imbibed, her tragic circumstances lead to considerable media moral panic as the newsprint picked apart the events leading up to her death, a tragedy that was to epitomize the collision between Edwardian society and the emerging hedonism of jazz.

The final inquest into Billie Carleton's death drew light on her relationships with a number of men, one of who, Reginald De Veulle, a dressmaker, was cross-examined by the coroner. The media cast aspersions on his masculinity, highlighting what they viewed as feminine traits, not least of all his avoidance of conscription in the war. The increased scrutiny by the media focused upon Billie Carleton's use of cocaine, adopting it as a metaphor for their fears of the changing cultural landscape. Revelations in newspapers such as The Daily Sketch described a frail, waif like woman who had slipped from societies paternalistic embrace to fall foul of the vices of drugs, the pitfalls of the theatrical way of life and her relations with an underclass of men, all of whom had avoided the war draft. Billie Carleton became the epitome of the 'butterfly on a wheel'.

As jazz culture took hold on both sides of the Atlantic, our story focuses on another woman whose life was tragically taken as a result of her penchant for drugs, in this case the records point to clear evidence of a cocaine overdose. In 1922 the British Government was increasingly legislating against the supply, possession and use of drugs, largely in response to the prohibitionist drive of the USA and the moral panics surrounding the deaths of Billie Carleton and the earlier tragedy that befell the Yeoland Sisters at the turn of the century, whose disappointment in their theatrical careers lead to a suicide pact involving cocaine in 1902.

Freda Kempton was a dancer who lived in Westbourne Grove with her landlady, but spent her working life frequenting the nighttime economy of the West End. Her lifestyle brought her into contact with cocaine as a means of staying awake and energising herself for the rigors of dancing with the club membership. Freda's use of cocaine had already drawn the concern of some of her friends, however it was the intoxicating mix of her substance use, her relationship with a Chinese entrepreneur known in the West End as 'Brilliant Chang', and her tragic overdose that drew the baying of the media.

On the night prior to her death she had reportedly been in the company of Chang. It was alleged that she had known him for a short time and that she had obtained a regular supply of cocaine through his association. Having returned to her flat in possession of a bottle of cocaine in the hours of the morning of the 6^th March, she spent most of that day in bed before her mother called round. Later on that afternoon she returned to bed until the evening when she appeared for a glass of water. The landlady described how Freda Kempton had again emerged from her room, only this time complaining of terrible pains to her head, which resulted in convulsions and foaming at the mouth within the hour. Freda died in the arms of her landlady, Sadie Heckel.

The subsequent verdict was suicide following the discovery of a note by her landlady, although the evidence was largely inconclusive. Freda Kempton was later buried at Kensal Rise Cemetery in common grave number 47380, square 198 at 9.30 am on Saturday 11th March 1922 - aged 21. The plot no longer remains, having made way for the memorial garden to the back of the crematorium some years later. As with Billie Carleton, the media were keen to draw parallels between Freda Kempton's use of cocaine and her interracial relations, as though drugs and ethnicity were inexorably linked. Brilliant Chang was afforded the mysterious andcruel caricature of the Sax Rohmer creation Fu Manchu by contemporary reports. As with the later efforts of the eugenics movement they were keen to describe his racial physiology as they portrayed him masterminding a sinister network of vice behind his emotionless smile. The media warned of the perils facing a permissive society were it to refrain from it's moral duty in taking a strong stance on the issues of multiculturalism, substance use and female emancipation.

In doing so, they clearly chose to overlook Britain's aggressive approach to the export of Indian opium to China less than a century earlier, a commodity that culminated in two wars with China and the enslavement of thousands of Chinese people to the soporific and habit forming drug.

There can be no doubt of course that substances then, as now, presented a risk to the user. Many substances such as cocaine were initially hailed as wonder drugs in the run up to the Twentieth Century, endorsed by such notable figures as the Pope and Sigmund Freud. It was only when the latter’s best friend Fleischl-Marxow died through his use of cocaine that Freud tempered his inclination to extol the virtues of the Erythroxylum plant.

With the advent of the Pharmacy Act 1868 drugs such as opium came under tighter regulation in this country, although still accessible to the public at large. The Defense of the Realm Act at the onset of the Great War brought tighter controls in a bid to support the war effort, most notably the licensing laws that restricted sales of alcohol. In contradiction, soldiers fighting on the front were provided with ‘Forced March Tablets’, containing extract of kola and cocaine.

At the same time there were reports in the newspapers of soldiers returning from the battlefield delirious from their use of cocaine, alongside more racist stories of black men ‘crazed’ through excessive consumption of the drug.

This period of contradiction was to eventually give way to the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1925, the foundation stone for what was to later become the Misuse of Drugs Act in 1971. In the years following the Dangerous Drugs Act, the media moral panic was harnessed by the likes of the American prohibitionist Harry J Anslinger, (1892-1975), Head of the Federal Bureau Of Narcotics, in his campaign to outlaw all drug use. Where the media on both sides of the Atlantic had previously alluded to links between drug use, sexual promiscuity and the perceived dangers of inter race relations, Anslinger was forthright in his racist outlook,

'There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others’.

As repulsive as Anslinger’s rhetoric may sound to the contemporary ear, it is worth noting that such links between the vulnerability of white women, immigration and drug use remain a staple of the modern media moral panic, a phenomenon as familiar today as in the days of Freda Kempton. The following provides a recent excerpt from a Judge’s summing up of a case involving a young black man, as reported in a London newspaper, ‘The case has everything about it that is un-English, drugs, knives, guns and the exploitation of whores’.

History’s role in supporting us to challenge our assumptions is irrefutable. The tragic lives of Billie Carleton and Freda Kempton played a pivotal role in the creation of a moral panic that gendered drug use, a moral panic that that continues to thrive to this day, directly linking to the legislative framework governing both the consumption of drugs and the treatment available to those whose lives are affected by their use in the UK.

Originally published in Kensal Green Cemetery Magazine, July 2010

Vietnam 1971

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 was pivotal in defining attitudes to drug users in the UK for the next twenty nine years and beyond into the New Millennium. For the many of the people who had lived through the hedonism and optimism of the 1960s the MDA was the final nail in the coffin as recreational drug users became criminals overnight.
In South East Asia the war in Vietnam was changing under the US presidency of Nixon who wanted to see soldiers returning to America and the effective handing over of the war to the Southern Vietnamese to continue alone.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the CIA had been at odds with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under Anslinger and then Giordano. Whilst the CIA were championing a policy of anything goes in the interest of national security (including the running of heroin as a means of infiltrating the Communists and Mafia), the FBN found themselves investigating the very people whose side they were supposed to be on.
In the paradoxical world of the early 1970s, where boundaries were becoming increasingly blurred, soldiers engaged in the disastrous conflict in Vietnam found themselves caught in the maelstrom of a government desperate to draw a line under the war it was losing and a people back home that were more concerned with the ideals of the 1960s. For many, heroin offered a way out and a means by which to bury the horrors of war.
The photo of soldiers lining up for a heroin test reveals the extent to which the use of the drug was prevalent throughout the conflict. Readily available in South East Asia, largely as a result of British opium export to China during the 19th Century, heroin use was a concern for the American administration seeking to curtail it's use back home.