A Bitter Victory

The government has declared its intention to place a blanket ban on all of the legal highs which are so irresponsibly sold to ignorant victims throughout this country.

dealers
who wilfully
continue to peddle
these lethal powders and pills
will risk seven years
imprisonment

This is our awaited victory
but it will not heal our sick nation
these abominations will still
insidiously spill
through the fingers of criminals
into the pockets
of the un-listening
in search of a chemical thrill
to take away their dissatisfaction
their disenfranchisement
and all of the other
disses that they feel

some of them will die and some will merely become ill.
their skin stick to their bones, or turn grey and wrinkle
some will see strange things which no-one else can see

worms under the skin

secret messages on old receipts

people watching them from rooftops

hidden enemies with weird agendas

some will jump off bridges to their deaths
some will merely cease breathing in their sleep
some will make it to a medical ward before expiring

some
will
survive

A statement by the home office informs us that the Bill’s purpose is: “to protect hard-working citizens from the risks posed by untested, unknown and potentially harmful drugs.”

And it shocks me to see those words so brazenly stated.
are the hardworking citizens the only people of significance?

What of the victims of abuse, of sickness and pain, of mental illness, of this self-righteous government’s callous methods of leadership which ignore the vulnerable?

What of those who have never managed to grab an opportunity because they are weaker than the rest?

And where is your gratitude, you members of parliament, you movers and shakers, you climbers to the top on the of the ladder, you well oiled, well educated, well-to-do upstanding members of the community?

Where is your gratitude, because somebody has to be downtrodden, down-at heel, down and out in this capitalist society in which you thrive, and if it wasn’t them, it could be you.

Your callous wording is another way of inciting the low paid to hate and dispise the unemployed and unemployable.

Those traumatised ex-servicemen
who fought your wars for you
were hardworking citizens before they
ran screaming from their families
to die in the dirt of the streets

Is this bill not intended to help preserve what is left of them?

Or perhaps you think that only ‘respectable’ individuals take legal highs – those smart university students who later graduate to city suits and a middle-class cocaine habit.

© Jane Paterson Basil