20 March 2007

Drugs and Death

I’m interviewing a friend of a friend about the tragic death of her cousin. The air that separates us is full of that kind of tension that makes you want to fall into an invisible hole and I am aware that this topic is one that is seldom broached upon. In 2004 this girl, who wishes to remain un-named lost her cousin to a death that only drugs hold responsibility for.

The man, whose name wasn’t disclosed, had a prosperous future ahead of him that literally evaporated. He was 24, engaged to a beautiful woman and studying mechanical engineering at a university in Hong Kong. However as is often the case with those that are easily influenced and young, he, as the old cliché goes got in with the wrong crowd.

He started taking drugs, at first it was just ecstasy pills, then he branched out to Cocaine and Crack till eventually he got mixed up in the harrowing world of Heroine. He formed a secret life, one that his family were shielded from and one that was wrapped up in a cloth of substances, users and dealers, a life that was inescapable. He borrowed money off his Granddad claiming it was for machinery and maintaining the elaborate lifestyle that his Grandfather had spoilt him with.

The more drugs he did the more disconnected he became from his old life and soon he dropped out of university. These steps led to a path of drug dealing and an over use, resulting in a high level of dependency. When his parents found out of his situation, due to it being impossible for him to hide, they prevented his Granddad from giving him any more money so as to encourage him to get clean.

Heroine is an incredibly dangerous drug, it engulfs your life and paralyses all that is bad and all that is good. It becomes your one and only fixation, your one and only hope, it destroys you as it controls you. This is what happened to her cousin, he couldn’t get clean so he turned to the gangs of china, notorius for their ruthlessness. He borrowed money off these gangs to pay for his habit and he accepted drugs he had no means of paying for. If you can’t pay these gangs with money you pay them with your blood and this is what he did.

On November the third, he and his girlfriend drove to meet some friends; he was heavily under the influence of narcotics. They never made it to meet them. A car smashed into the side of their vehicle instantly killing him, no one else was touched. The accident was written off as being highly suspicious but was coincidently never investigated. It later emerged that the driver of the other car was strongly integrated with the Chinese drug gangs that the man had been borrowing money off.

One of the main aspects of drug abuse and one that is often neglected is the fact that a user has a family, friends and people who generally care about them. In this case the father of the man was driven insane with a need to seek revenge. He sought out the man who caused the accident and tried to murder him. He is still touched only by the need to avenge his son’s death and he, like his son has become unrecognisable due to drugs. If you feel you have an addiction or someone close to you does, click on the websites within this blog and you can get access to help.

1 comment:

Fran Singh said...

im not saying this because I feel guilty about other comments....this really is awesome. Dont you dare do what we talking about earlier it would be such a waste x