'Aww naw, I've loast ma giro'
Anyway, the Missus had to go into the card shop and me being me waited outside whilst having a smoke. I enjoy the pastime known as 'people watching' and I had a good look around, being ever mindful not to be mistaken for a mad staring psycho. Or perhaps being found out AS a mad staring psycho.
Dotted amongst the normal shoppers thronging the pedestrianised streets were the zombies. The waif like frames and the 'screaming skull' appearance are two easy signs for spotting them. Usually they move around in groups of three or four, always in a hurry for some reason. They cannot hold conversation like you and I, they have to shout at each other in that dreadful nasally whine that seems to be the generic voice of the junkie.
There were at least three different groups of them. All in a hurry to get to where they are going. Five minutes later the same group would hurry past you going in the opposite direction from when they passed you the last time. Where are they going? I hope never to find out.
I also noticed a different kind of junkie. The 'couple' junkie. A guy and girl zombiefied combo. Wrapped up in their own wee world, oblivious to everyone around them they shout and argue with each other, sometimes from opposite ends of the street. Now and again they have in their possession a toddler, normally very small for their age and with that 'future junkie' look on the face and a dog which is usually a Staffie cross or similar. The dog always looks better looked after than the child. The guy half of the combo normally waits outside the shop while the girl half goes in to buy or steal whatever it is they are looking for. This is usually because the guy is barred.
And then we have the other type, the junkie mates. Best buddies at the school, they have climbed the junkie ladder together. Easily spotted, they lurk in the doorways of empty shops or behind phone boxes always crouching down on their 'hunkers'. Do not mistake this type for the couple type, as the couple will crouch occasionally too.
There is one thing that all junkies have in common, and this must never be forgotten. You and I fund them and their lifestyle choice. Notice that I use the word 'choice'. The righteous hand wringers would have you believe that these 'people' are victims of society. Nonsense, we are the victims, we are the ones who get robbed directly and indirectly to fund their choice of lifestyle.
But what to do? How do 'we' cure this cancer eating away at our country?
To be honest, I think that the 'powers that be' aren't particularly interested in curing this cancer.
17 comments:
The powers that be. Who would they be?. The parasites leeching from the taxpayers in the guise of MP/MSP/MEP et al ad infinitum.
estyle
Rab.
The really sad thing about your account of a friday afternoon in Kilmarnock town centre is you could have been any where in scotland.
Cheers Bro
The bit I really hate about them is when they elbow their way to the front of the queue in the Chemist's to get their methadone , pushing respectable people out the way (not those of us who're 6 foot tall and growl at them , though!Oh , no !)
Actually , I wouldn't mind at all if there was Arsenic in the methadone .
Lot cheaper and less distressing in the long run .
Not just in Scotland Rab, we have them here too and especially in Torquay !
The other thing that they do is not shave and point aggressivly at each other, particularly their womenfolk. As you infer, they live their shared lives seemingly oblivious to the rest of us except when they wish to scrounge or steal.
Solution ? Culling. A.S.A.P..
You're right though Rab. None of the powers that be want to touch this with a bargepole because they'll lose votes I expect.
Thankfully my area isn't this bad in daytime but when darkness falls it's another story.
There's no need to dream up new solutions, let's just turn back the clock forty years.
Let doctors give out heroin on prescription, like until about 1970. Until then we had a few hundred heroin addicts in the country. Since they stopped this, the number has gone up to a few hundred thousand.
Sounds just like Slough High Street. Combine this lot with pakistani immigrants and watch the riots occur.
What's the matter, Rab? Have you no quangos up there inclusively envisioning community-driven solutions with partners and other stakeholders?
Taranis amusingly raises an interesting point .
I know of a woman in my Lanarkshire tribal area who works as just such an inclusive , community driven druggie support facilitator .
She's a druggie herself ! (Not heroin , but).
Any more obvious recidivism and she'd be in Cornton Vale !
Is this a deliberate part of the system ? Wouldn't surprise me .
There are thousands of public sector jobs at stake so the drug culture in Scotland needs to be maintained at all costs.
The managers who run drop in centres , rehab, outreach facilties etc are on serious pay and pensions so will maintain the status quo vigorously.
A drugged & dependant on the State voting base is exactly what McSnot wants. He & his chums never venture down our local leafy lanes (apart from Hampstead Heath that is) or through our shopping centre so are not bothered by addicts' anti-social behaviour. It keeps chunks of the public sector quiescent too as they need their highly paid 'seniour assistant deputy outreach manager' jobs which allow them to live miles away from any trouble spots. Don't believe me about those titles? - read the ads in the Guardian any day - and weep.
Taranis"...inclusively envisioning community-driven solutions with partners and other stakeholders?...
Superb ! Time for bed but thank you.
The answer Rab is as Mark Wadsworth said: Legalise the bloody stuff.
Result:
All that petty crime decimated.
No more battered OAPs.
No more money going to criminal gangs.
All that time the fuzz can redirect to real crime.
And probably no more menacing junkies hanging around.
Seems a bit of a no brainer to me really.
hermit -
Understand where you're coming from , but I don't think it'll solve any of the problems .
The real thing with these junkies is not that they rob and steal to fund their vile habit , but that their self-indulgent , self-absorbed nihilism leads them to rob and steal .
They'd be doing it anyway , whether their drugs cost 10p or £10,000 . Their habit makes them ignore all social (and even existential) norms and concentrates their minds on 'self' alone .
So the OAPs would still be getting battered , along with everyone else these scum come across who's smaller and weaker than them .
The drug dealers would find some other crime to make money from without fear of the (now useless) law coming down on them .
The Polis aren't interested (see above).
Junkie scum will still hang about causing trouble because that's what their habit and mind-set makes them do .
No easy Utopian solution which doesn't involve hanging , flogging and "Rule 303" , I'm afraid .
Worked for Chairman Mao with the Opium addicts .
But if heroin were made free and legal at least they would kill themselves more quickly, Bargain, especially as we have access to 90% of the worlds supply.
Tricky one for any government. You can argue that it's in the best interests to give them free drugs on the NHS (current drug of choice being methadone, for whatever bizarre reason seen as being somehow cleaner and less habit forming than other opiates) - the argument goes that not do so would not get people stopping drugs, just committing more crimes although I find that doubtful.
I'd imagine most junkies take as much drugs as they can and use the free NHS drugs as a bonus top-up.
So easy to abuse the system too, just go to the doctors, say 'Heroin addiction' and that's you signed off work with disability for as long as you want - no jobseekers (cause who'd employ you anyway, not exactly off to a flying start if the first thing you say in the interview is 'By the way big man, ah've a bit o a problem wi the smack but so ah canna be counted on turning up and when I dae it'll be oot ma heid') or other nasty beauracratic nonsense, just a giro through the door every two weeks rising after x weeks as you become more long term 'disabled' and qualify for higher rates.
The only solution I can see is like mentioned above, give up on these people as a lost cause (which the Left will never do) and give them as much free drugs as they want (which the Right will never do).
I had a similar experience recently, in a very busy tourist area near the West End of Edinburgh at about 9pm. It was still very light.
Just walking past, minding my own business, when one junkie head-butted his boyfriend, then threatened to do the same to me.
Scary stuff. I'm over six feet and can handle myself, but he was obviously off his tits. I could have kicked him in the nuts and he wouldn't have felt a thing.
Round 'em up and give them three months' cold detox with hard labour. That should cut the numbers a bit. If they reoffend, give them a years supply of high grade herion to play with. All at once.
A blight on our society.
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