"Painkillers" again

I think entertainers must be jolly unlucky people. Singing, dancing and acting appear to cause immense amounts of physical pain, requiring the practitioners to be prescribed constant doses of powerful painkilling medications. Not for them a quiet cup of steaming LemSip or a trip to see the burly Latvian masseuse at Madam Fifi's Sauna and Hanky-Panky Parlour, it has to be handfuls of pills or strong liquids injected wherever and whenever a doctor is paid to administer them.

I read this morning that taking pain medication "became part of" the late Mr Jackson's life. He is not the first and he won't be the last. Before Elvis Presley left showbusiness for a career behind the bacon counter at the Co-Op in Barnsley (or wherever he was last sighted) he was said to have been taking vast quantities of prescription drugs, including many to relieve pain. How strange it is to an outsider like me that the weight of a hand-held microphone can cause such stress to the human body that it leaves the performer in constant agony.

Were I a cynic I would probably suggest that many entertainers' painkilling medication is plain old-fashioned drug addiction tailored by skilled medical practitioners to give the thrill that is desired without the risk of criminal penalties. And pain is a wonderful way to achieve this end because it is virtually impossible to disprove someone's claim of pain. "Slacker's back" results in countless idlers being signed off work by doctors who have no means of knowing whether the person in front of them is putting it on - he says he's in agony, he winces and walks with a stick, what's the quack meant to do? He could say "I don't believe you", but on what ground could he form that view? He might be right, he might be wrong, there is simply no way of telling unless positive evidence is unearthed that is inconsistent with the claimed malady. Many years ago I acted in a personal injury case for someone who claimed his right hand was useless as the result of someone colliding with his car. Throughout the necessary medical examinations and during the trial his right arm lay limp at his side and his wife was brought along to take notes for him because he could not write. On securing a tasty sum in damages we were leaving court when he rushed ahead of me, grasped the handle of the heavy courtroom door with his "useless" right hand and pulled it wide open to allow me to pass through. Fortunately no one on the Defendant's side witnessed it. This sort of thing happens all the time in one way or another.

Frankly, I don't care whether people take illegal drugs or not. Many are illegal through historical quirks while other equally potent medicines are readily available within the law. The whole thing is pretty random. If someone takes something and misbehaves as a result, it is their misbehaviour that the law should address. Injesting an illegal substance and then helping old ladies across the road does not seem in the least bit objectionable to me (unless they didn't want to cross the road, of course).

Somehow I think it would be fairer to the memory of the late Mr Jackson for it to be asserted that he was addicted to drugs rather than engaging in the wishy-washy code of "He started taking pain medication. It became part of his life." He would still be dead (subject to there being any vacancies in supermarket delicatessens) but at least people would be honest about him.

"Howzatt?" Guilty as charged.

Today a former England cricketer was sentenced to 13 years in chokey for smuggling cocaine. Chris Lewis was an excellent player when he tried, sadly he didn't try often enough and his career was littered with lost opportunities. From the little I have read about it, his venture into drug smuggling was equally half-baked. He and a friend imported liquid cocaine in containers labelled as fruit juice. Most comical of all was the pair's decision to blame each other - the classic "cut-throat" defence.

Smuggling drugs is fraught with difficulties. Actually, I'm not in a position to say how difficult the smuggling itself is but I can say something about the difficulties faced if caught. You see, there's no such thing as a good defence. The tin of pineapple chunks in your luggage turns out to be full of cocaine, what can you say that might possibly make sense?

"My mum likes pineapple chunks so I bought them as a present." OK, so how did it happen that the tin of innocent fruit turned into thousands of pounds worth of Colombia's finest? How did it get onto the shelves of the QuickyMart in the first place? And how very lucky that it was intercepted by HM Revenue & Customs before dear old Ma wolfed it down a drop of Carnation milk.

Or you could try this one: "I never knew it was there, it must have been planted in my luggage by an unknown stranger." Bit tricky that, how do you explain that you didn't notice it? Say it wasn't in your luggage but you came over by car and it was found under the spare tyre in the boot. Then you have to explain how the intended recipient was going to recover it from you. If you have no connection to the importation chain this might prove a little impractical.

And then there is the defence run by Mr Lewis and his chum: "My friend gave it to me to bring over for him because he feared his luggage would be overweight." In this case each said it of the other. Now you know the real reason we are asked that seemingly daft question at airports: "has anyone given you anything to carry?" It isn't so that we will say "yes", it's so we will say "no"; then when we are caught and say we were just carrying the pineapple chunks for a heavily laden friend we find we shot ourselves in the foot at the start of the journey. Of course when travelling with a friend you might find that one of you is over the baggage weight allowance and the other is under so spreading the load makes sense, but only a moron takes a container of anything, sensible people relieve their friend of clothes or stolen hotel towels.

A necessary part of the defence is that you didn't know the stuff was cocaine. This aspect of it tends to stand or fall alongside the inanity of your excuse for carrying the package in the first place. Once a jury dismisses your story about how the stuff came into your possession it follows almost as night follows day that they won't believe anything else you tell them.

Following that theme, I now arrive at the "cut-throat" defence - where the two defendants blame each other. Amateur criminals rather like the cut-throat defence. They talk about it while awaiting trial and conclude that by blaming each other they will both get off because the jury won't be able to decide which is guilty. Or they fall out before the trial and blame each other out of spite. Either way it is an almost guaranteed route to conviction because it appears cowardly and unrealistic. Professional criminals rarely use the cut-throat. Where the evidence is very strong against one and a bit weaker against the other they prefer to sacrifice the one who is going to be potted anyway (in the general run of things his guilty plea earns a reduced sentence). He then gives evidence against the other and enhances his friend's chance of acquittal by making mistakes in his evidence thereby creating a hole in the prosecution case that was not previously present.

Mr Lewis and his friend played it all wrong and will have seven or so years to think of a better defence if ever they are tempted again. They didn't keep their eye on the ball.

Poker or casserole, otherwise no pot thank you

I have never taken any illegal drugs. Not even a Clintonesque uninhaled experience with cannabis. Yet I am a chain smoking alcoholic. My smoking and drinking contributed to a severe heart attack at an early age and another will surely follow because I have hardly changed my ways. Through all the years I have been clogging my arteries and turning my liver to fat, not a single temptation to take an illegal substance has crossed what I laughably call my mind. I wonder why. It seems to me there are probably three reasons.

The first is that they were never part of my life growing up. I was as unsociable a child as I am an adult, parties and noisy clubs have never been my thing so I was never in the places where I might have been expected to be exposed to drugs. Even at university I never saw any one taking anything I knew to be an unlawful narcotic and I was never offered anything of that kind.

Secondly, I have always associated the use of illegal drugs with a desire to rebel whereas I have always wanted to be part of the establishment. One thing that sticks in my mind from the 1970s is how absurd and naive I always thought hippies to be. Stupid clothes and loud hair seemed to me signs of the arrogant and selfish. The more they tried to stand out through their appearance the more I interpreted them as saying "look at me, look at me, see how special I am, I'm not like you little people". It seemed rather pathetic, all the more so when they idolised multi-millionaire musicians for their stands against capitalism. Paying to make some people rich in order to complain about other people being rich has never seemed very sensible to me.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is illegal. I'm a rather passive sort of chap when it comes to the law. Like it or loath it, I will abide by it. Maybe that makes me a dull and unadventurous old fart but it's the way I am. Possessing certain substances is against the law so I am heavily inclined against doing so.

Sometimes I ask myself whether my attitude would be any different were these substances available lawfully. Would I forgo a bottle of wine and take something else instead? Maybe I would, in fact I suspect it is more than likely that I would, or at very least that I would give it a try. Because it is illegal I am not even prepared to give it a try. The legal-illegal divide is, I suspect, of importance to a great many more people than just me. Living in a society with laws in which the vast majority seek to abide by the laws is something which helps form the stable country we are. It is probably more cultural than rational, but our default position is to abide by the law. Something that is illegal is on the wrong side of the line so we would need persuading before we were prepared to try it.

Those of us who have difficulty restricting their consumption of the legal drugs alcohol and tobacco might have good reason to be grateful that other drugs are prohibited.