Sunday 14 February 2010

Was it worth it?

I'm having quite a Valentine's weekend, but not such an eventful one as my 15 year-old grand daughter, who I picked up from hospital yesterday after she was eventually discharged, having passed out at a friend's house the night before. Her friend was unable to wake her, and finally called her parents, who arrived to find their beautiful daughter lying unconscious, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. They called an ambulance, of course, and mum went with her on the 15 mile journey to hospital, after the paramedics had made an assessment of the situation. She had been snorting MEPHADRONE.

Mephadrone has not been in this country for long - it is manufactured in China and bought by unscrupulous dealers for about £2500 a kilo, then sold on at £10 a gram at many outlets including the internet, where it is disguised as 'plant-food' or 'fertiliser' in order to avoid prosecution. If you fed it to plants, they would die quicker than the people who snort it. At the moment, it is completely legal to sell and possess, as the authorities have not had enough time to legislate against it. There have already been quite a few deaths world-wide as a result of taking it, and I wonder how many more there will be before it is banned. There have also been countless descriptions of ghastly side-effects, including brain-bleeds and paranoia. At the hospital, the doctor told mum that the previous weekend had seen a whole group of teenagers brought into A & E, having snorted it at a party, all with the same array of symptoms.

I'm off to visit my lovely girl again today - now safely back home and grounded for the foreseeable future. Partly we will be celebrating the fact that she is still alive and (hopefully) not brain-damaged, but mainly to help her to understand why she will not be going to any parties or festivals this summer. As the child psychologist said at the hospital, it will be a long time before all those bridges are mended and trust is restored again, as we really don't want her dead - or worse. She has just blown the last year of her childhood, and it will never be restored to her, but at least she can hopefully look forward to being a healthy, young adult.

When she regained consciousness at the hospital, after taking in a whole bag of saline drip, the doctor asked her, "Well then, was that worth it?"

She said, "No."

9 comments:

  1. This is a tragic story, and not un-common. A quick look on the net turns up plenty of suppliers who seem to offer their wares with impunity. Another very dangerous 'drug' is sold as Chrome Cleaner.

    No need to import this stuff. I understand that it can be made from common agricultural chemicals.

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  2. Having been no angel myself in the past, I have recently been coming clean with the dear girl about what I used to get up to, on the grounds that advice coming from me would be believable and helpful to her, during the inevitable period of experimentation as a result of peer pressure. She said to the doctor, "All my friends do it", and the doctor said, "So what?"

    One of the main points that I tried to drum into her (obviously unsuccessfully) was that 'just because it is legal, it doesn't mean that it's safe', and I see that the same point is high on the list of the information sheets given out by the NHS, but - in most cases - this advice is given out after the event. All the kids think 'it won't happen to me'.

    Ironically, it would actually have been better if her and her friends could have afforded the £60 for a gram of half 'decent' cocaine, than the £7 that they could afford for this shit.

    I am pleased to report that she seems to be fine now, but sheepish and terrified, but it will be a long time before her parents can get the horrific, fresh image of her almost choking on her own tongue out of their heads.

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  3. P.S. Next on the agenda is the visit by a person from the Social Services department, who will - quite rightly - try to determine whether or not this event took place as a result of an unsatisfactory home environment, or just plain bad parenting, but it seems that the hospital psychologist has already advised S.S. that there seems to be nothing wrong with the boundaries set in that household to date. I'm sure that Social Services have seen it all before.

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  4. P.P.S. If the girls had been snorting cocaine, the Social Services rep would be accompanied by a police officer who would be making independent enquiries with regard to arresting her friend and prosecuting her as a supplier, but - since the law has not been broken - it is no business of the police. Good thing, or bad thing?

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  5. An extremely cloudy area. I'm not fanatically anti-drugs, but guidelines do need to be drawn. This is almost a case for legalisation of certain products, where 'quality control' could be maintained.

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  6. Yes - difficult isn't it. A lot of heroin addicts die each year when someone forgets to cut the batch before it hits the streets.

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  7. I'm still waiting for one of the pink ladies to tell us about the allure of cupcakes - any ideas?

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  8. how frightening for her parents and how awful for her..during my stint in London it was more unusual to meet someone out who wasnt on something than it was to meet someone who was..

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  9. Same today I think, Maiden. The trouble is that the provincial teenagers cannot afford the real thing.

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