I just noticed a horrible little story in the local paper. A 40 year old woman has just spent 134 days in Holloway Prison, an exceedingly nasty place, because she had been found incapably drunk in Braintree. She was at the time serving a six year ASBO which prohibited her from being either drunk in a public place, or shouting and using abusive words.
When she finally came up to the Crown Court, she was given a year’s probation.
Now God knows that journalists never become alcoholics, and, even when they are drunk, never behave badly in public. We are prone to other crimes. One of my former colleagues from the Independent was caught downloading child pornography; another beat his wife up very badly. Both of them were sentenced to three months in jail, which means that they actually served six weeks.
Yet this pathetic alcoholic, Gillian Crow, spent more than four months in jail on remand for being drunk and obnoxious. I don’t see justice here, nor joined up government.
Given alcoholism is a disease it’s a bit like jailing a flu patient for projectial vomiting in public. Actually, nevermind- there’s a reason to do that, given flu is highly contagious and kills a lot of people every year.
Sorry to overcomment, but addiction is a complete soapbox for me. I find treating something like alcoholism like a moral failing as one of those human rights violations that our decendents will find as civilized as burning witches. I think if we legalized and taxed drugs and put the money in research be could probably have an addiction vaccination in less than 10 years.
Quinn, dear, comment all you like. I would welcome more comments from sane and interesting people.