Header picture – Chilly Struggle Steve – Posted to Fb Friday August 2, 2024
Because of Andre from Speaking Medication (https://www.talkingdrugs.org/about/) for alerting me to this piece.
I don't usually learn the New Statesman lately, as a result of in any other case I'd miss this one
Because the weekend riots go by the 24/7 Keir Starmer conference courts, and allegations of racially aggravated riots, assaults and public order offenses go by the press, you may additionally discover the significance of Class A drug possession prices. . Thus far, there was a 45-year-old man in Bristol, a 28-year-old man in Bolton, and a 21-year-old man in Sunderland.
There may very well be many comparable accusations to return, and fortunately their provide ran out earlier than {the handcuffs} got here off. The connection between laborious medicine and far-right aggro has grow to be a trope of British life. As fires raged and hassle unfold throughout the nation, many social media jokes blamed an unholy triumvirate of divorce, Fb and cocaine. It isn’t a current phenomenon. Even Tommy Robinson was convicted of drug possession. And in a later (deleted) video he was caught bragging about how he “scores” in each metropolis he visits. Whereas nobody blames these disturbing shows of racist violence completely on white folks, it seems to be greater than only a contributing issue.
There's additionally a number of overlap with that different nice vector of British angst: soccer. Robinson didn’t make a secret of recruiting current soccer firms as his foot troopers, and on the terraces the usage of coke is approaching omnipresence. In 2021, a research carried out by the Worldwide Journal of Drug Coverage discovered that about 30 % of the folks interviewed had seen cocaine in soccer stadiums. The deal additionally went earlier than a parliamentary panel, with Peter Houghton from the Affiliation of Soccer Security Officers telling MPs that the bathrooms after a Cambridge United match “seemed like a laundry – there was a lot mud in every single place.”
Learn the complete piece at
https://www.newstatesman.com/remark/2024/08/is-cocaine-driving-the-british-riots
