The Queen Takes Cocaine

But, of course, she doesn't take cocaine. It is actually a comment by an actor who played the Queen. But fucking hell, let's not let a good headline get in the way of the actual story. The likes of The Daily Star certainly aren't.

However, how does this actually constitute a story? An actor takes cocaine? Someone in media takes cocaine? How many times a day do you think this story is repeated over and over again, just with a different person sticking Uncle Charlie up their nose? People take drugs. They always have done. They always will do. Why this interest in people snorting a bit of coke?

I know that many people think that if you take drugs, you are instantly on a downward spiral towards addiction, prostitution and death. Except that is blatantly absolute bollocks. Helen Mirren actually shows that! Look at her. A successful, Oscar winning actress. She's not a junkie scumbag; she actually just used drugs a bit and gave up. And just look at the reason why she gave up:

“I loved coke – never a lot, just a little bit at parties. But what ended it for me was when they caught Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, in the early 80s... He was hiding in South America and living the life of a cocaine baron. Then I saw how my little sniff of cocaine had an absolute direct route to this f*****g horrible man in South America."

Right, so let's be very clear on this - Mirren did not give up drugs because she thought that she was an addict or for any of the other reasons that the media likes to associate with the *evils* of drug taking. In fact, she gave up because of the ethical issues of coke funding a evil man. But we don't really see that sort of rhetoric in the media; oh no. It is all the talk about how drugs = addiction, and then screaming about any celebrities who may have taken drugs hysterically.

But, I hear you say, drugs are illegal. They are bad. The laws say so. Which is true. Drugs are illegal. But thousands of people are breaking the drug laws every week. Just as thousands are committing other acts that the law says are wrong. Like, say, speeding in a car. Speeding is illegal, thousands of people do it. Drug taking is illegal, thousands of people do it.

Now you could go on to argue that the media is right to carp on about drugs rather than speeding, because the consequences of drug abuse are far worse than speeding. I'd counter that by saying that overdosing and drug related crime can have just as devastating consequences as a massive car accident caused by someone speeding. Neither course of action is without potential problems, which is why the government feels the need to legislate on both of them. But this media focus on drug use is hysterical and banal.

Particularly when you focus on something else that Mirren said in her interview - and something that was not reported by the likes of The Daily Star:

"I was [date-raped], yes. A couple of times. Not with excessive violence, or being hit, but rather being locked in a room and made to have sex against my will."

So there you have it; the focus of the media is on whether consenting adults take drugs. The topic of date rape should be swept under the carpet or mentioned as an aside, once the drugs issue has been dealt with in a fuck of a lot of detail.

Whenever I think about how fucked our country is, I tend to lay the blame at the door of the government. And I stand by that - they are largely responsible. But the skewed, almost insane priorities of the media, should take some of the blame as well.