Thats Ugly ...

Now I don't really care what consenting adults do to each other and themselves

I used to walk along the canal parallel to the Wicker, to collect my daughter from the SYAC nursery. There were always used sharps under the bridge there.

What we need are decent needle exchanges and places to dipose of this stuff, that are regulary cleaned.

Don't give me that Not in My back yard shit
Drugs are only a problem if you get crap ones ( too much citric acid .. at best) or can't afford them.
Illegality makes the good stuff expensive and difficult to get. Just look at the porblems America caused itself ( and the labor movement) by criminalising alchohol in the 1920's

Decriminalize and the problem goes away.

at present, society seems to be caught in the limbo between enforced rehab and virtual tolerance towards heroin users, and the Needle Exchanges are virtually giving intravenous drug use an almost acceptable status... they make it easy to be a junkie.

the least these outlets could do is make sure there's more than enough places to deposit used syringes. sharp boxes everywhere would help educate and promote an awareness to potential users and sheltered members of society alike, the message: that more needs to be done.

alright, choice being limited by social circumstance, it's usually the poorest and most desperate souls who end up as junkies but there's still a choice at the end of the day. i can remember a friend referring to heroin use back in the mining village where he came from, saying that it was the boring individuals with no hobbies or interests when they were younger who ended up as smackheads.

i'd love to see the drug addicts who work Sheff's streets sort themselves out and get help (help themselves basically, as no one else is going to help them) but a lot of them gave up on life even before they had their first dig.

who lets the shit into the country in the first place anyhow? smack comes from afghani/pakistan while crack/coke comes from south america... is this why the US wants to control these two regions - while a surplus of the populations back home (in the 1st world) are kept distracted/off their heads??

The flats in question (where the dodgy but quite artist platter of decadence is on display) are a disgraceful waste of natural resources. Abandoned by Sheffield City Council, the tower blocks have been emptied but left open for anyone to view the 350+ flats, half of which still contain loadsa furniture and other belongings.

Some of the flats were "furnished let" and the beds (adourned with the logo "Housing Depeartment") and other furniture provided by the council have just been left amongst all the other crap. Like everything else in this anti-thinking world, bureaucrats use the short term economical perspective: the cost of re-using stuff within capitalism (labour time, etc.) costs more than the actual new stuff itself!

I bet if the individual tenants took the Council Property along with them, then they'd get charged. Sheffield City Council reserve the right to landfill their own property.

This picture has no real message for or against drugs. To me it seems
to show that the world is a painful place. This would be a good set
up for an Easter Passion Play where Christ is a junkie and ODs with
four syringes as in a crucifixion. It is claimed that a mob condemned
Christ by public acclamation, but when confronted with the issue of
'DRUGS' many people lose their minds just like the assassins of god.
They cry out for repression and punishment and often these draconian
actions have exactly the opposite effect.

It is convenient for modern society to discard both buildings
and people. The whole saga of the tower blocks is the story of discarding
a lifestyle. Poor people could live like Croesus in such places provided
they respected the buildings and the neighbours. This causes envy on the
part of the property speculators who put up those student flats in the
city and rent them out to temporary residents at London prices. The middle
classes just don't want the working class to rise above their place in
Sheffield and their envy and greed is more destructive than Osama Bin Laden.

Junkies are discarded people. Many veterans of Britain's imperialist
wars end up junkies and psychotics. And here are the rich, intent
on demolishing homes fit for heros.

If you think that needle exchanges make the life of a drug addict easy you are VERY much mistaken. Fair enough it makes it a bit harder for them to contract fatal illness and the sharp 'sharps' make it abit easier to get themselves so theres a little less chance of infection and abcesses, sure a real easy life. Just imagine if that was the best thing you could say about all services!!! You'd be complaining about it to more than a little local web site then would'nt you?
Dont think i am defending everything that drug addicts do, but surely once theyve got themselves in that mess, at least a bit can be done to slow down the spread of AIDs and the like. Remember, not all smackheads are evil sods who would do any thing for a tenner, some of us have respectable jobs and get to read what you write about us on the internet!!!

Who takes this fine young man?
Whose grandfather laboured in the heat of the fires,
forging steel at a white hot pace,
as the city armed the country in it's finest hour.
Metal shards tore the flesh of the world,
as fascists rose up and narrowly lost.
Young men had a purpose then,
to fight and die for freedom,
they were in short supply.

But who takes this fine young man?
Whose father learnt the same trade,
rebuilding in the ruins of the bombed out slums.
Until as the age of metal faded,
and labour was lost,
he filled the days with beer and fags,
and reined the blows meant for beating steel,
down on his young family,
until his heart gave out through lack of hope.

Who takes this fine young boy?
Battered and bruised,
full of snot from the cold and the smoke.
Whose ears never clear and never hear the lessons,
who picks his way through the crumbling factories,
who runs with friends as they scrabble for life.
Not teachers, he's lost to them,
they shrug.

Who takes this fine young man?
The drugs for a time ...
and the pain is eased.
His labour is needed,
to fill the pockets of the man,
for even is this desperate town,
a profit can always be made,
from a young man's graft.

Who takes this fine young man?
The police for a while ...
and the courts and the cells.
And so he first meets with despair,
and hangs his first noose.
But not here young man ...
there's brown here aplenty,
your labours still needed,
when you've done your time.

Who takes this fine young man?
Not the doctors ...
as he turns for help 'Get me off this junk'.
Letters get sent, but he never turns up,
some people can't be helped, the best's been done.
A second and a third time he tried,
but he never did learn to read their replies
or find another way to stave off his rattle.

Who takes this fine young man?
Not the prisons ...
not this time, not again.
For what? To go round one more time,
To betray every friend and family,
to sell all honour and pride,
anything to score, anything,
with no end.

Who takes this fine young man?
Who could have made and repaired.
Who could have studied and cared.
Who could have prepared and served.
Who could have trained and scored.
Who could have crafted and created.

Who takes this fine young man?

The noose.

For Jeff, may you rest in peace and your mother forgive us. mmdc, 9-04