Milk of Paradise

by Lucy Inglis

  In 2012, the US government handed HSBC a landmark fine of $1.9 billion for money laundering, the biggest fine for the crime in history.46

  Women on Drugs

  ‘Heroin is a very particular drug. It gets inside your head, it gets under your skin . . . it becomes you’

  The role of women in the War on Drugs remains controversial, much as it was during the Gin Craze in 1740s London. In the case of Shing May Wong, women, whilst more likely to first be injected with heroin by a male sexual partner, are still viewed as harbingers of doom in terms of drug use, forever casting the ‘tiny shadow’.

  Women, and specifically young women, became the target of both the narcotic and the counter-narcotic public-relations campaigns of the 1980s and 90s. Increasingly, marketing and image were becoming important to the heroin trade. Just as the original morphinists had struggled with sores, blisters and ulcers owing to infected needles and repeated injection sites, the adulteration of No.4 heroin with everything from baking to talcum powder meant that a new generation of opiate users were suffering the side effects of their habits, never mind the possibility of contracting HIV, hepatitis, or sepsis. The perception of female use of intoxicants was heavily influenced, as it had been during the Gin Craze, by the mainstream media, using alarmist language and shocking images to create sensational stories that remained in the public consciousness. Heroin users in England and Scotland suffered particularly badly with an infected batch of the drug in the mid-1990s, when Clostridium novyi, a bug found in soil and faeces, was also found in heroin scores. The infection caused instant sepsis and more than thirty intravenous users died in a matter of days, yet little news of these deaths made it into the papers. Instead, the death of Essex schoolgirl Leah Betts (1977–95), from taking a single MDMA or Ecstasy tablet, was the focus of the media reports in the same week. Her image, yoked to a life-support machine after taking the tablet and drinking seven litres of water in ninety minutes, causing her brain to swell fatally, was front-page news for months, linked inextricably to the plague of narcotics thought to be spreading across Britain. In reality, a young generation in Britain was experiencing a new kind of high through the combination of music and chemical stimulants. As with any youth movement, traditional elements of the media were shocked and outraged, and further stigma became attached to drug use, with heroin representing the apex of a terrifying pyramid. Ecstasy and cannabis were referred to as gateway drugs with increasing frequency, as if once the decision to use drugs was taken, the path to ultimate destruction through intravenous heroin use was inescapable.

  The idea of female youth corrupted by the influence of narcotics reached a peak five years later in 2000, with the death in Exmouth, Devon of Rachel Whitear. Whitear had begun taking drugs aged fourteen, and by 1999 was using heroin, for which she sought help. She had overdosed on frequent occasions, likely due to her lack of experience with the drug. Born in Devon, the family had moved to Herefordshire during her childhood, but she had made the move back to Devon as soon as she was independent. As she distanced herself from her family, she grew closer to her boyfriend Luke Fitzgerald, a fellow drug user, with whom she had begun a turbulent relationship in 1997. After a series of family arguments and a failed attempt to study at Bath University, Rachel made the commitment to cease using heroin and to find a safe space for herself in 2000, away from Luke Fitzgerald. She agreed to meet him on the beach at Exmouth, to say goodbye, on Wednesday 10 May. ‘She told me she wanted to start a new life for herself. I left her sitting on the beach at about 9.30 p.m. and went straight home. I have not seen Rachel since that time.’47 The Telegraph pursued the story relentlessly over the following seven years. Rachel Whitear’s body was found on the floor of her apartment in Exmouth. She was crouched on her knees with a capped syringe in her hand. Whilst the cap of the syringe contained traces of diamorphine, the syringe itself tested negative for controlled substances, indicating that a used cap had been placed on a new syringe. Rachel’s body was heavily discoloured and she had been bleeding from her mouth. The efforts of the judiciary were minimal, and there was no immediate post-mortem, likely owing to Rachel’s status as a junkie. The coroner, Richard van Oppen, eventually returned an open verdict, unsure of the exact circumstances that had led to her death.

  Whitear’s family believe there were other people in the room when their daughter died, people who know precisely what happened and who staged her body to make it look like she had overdosed. In an attempt to prevent others suffering the fate of their daughter, her parents allowed the images of her body to be used in a drugs awareness video for teenagers. Little dignity is afforded to any of us in death, and to Rachel Whitear less than most. The use of her image, not as an advisory for other vulnerable young people, but as a scare tactic implying that it could happen to anyone, neglects the evidence that she may not have died of a heroin overdose at all. The exact circumstances of her death remain a mystery, and the small injuries on her body, as well as the blood coming from her mouth, point to final hours that held more than that one last high. Her parents have fought consistently for her to be remembered as a person, regardless of the media’s insistence on referring to her as a ‘bloated’ corpse.48 Yet Rachel was disinterred in 2004 so that a post-mortem could be carried out, and found to be still wearing the blue and white striped dress and cardigan she died in. The results of the post-mortem were inconclusive.

  The dehumanization of Rachel Whitear, even nearly twenty years on from her death, is symptomatic of the treatment of women who do not conform to the rules of society. It also discounts the textbook induction of a young woman into a heroin habit by a controlling male partner. Luke Fitzgerald has since been called to testify about what happened the day Rachel died. Now clean of heroin for some years, the inconsistencies in his story may not be criminal, but they are reprehensible, as evidenced by his own words: ‘I was not happy with her, she was not happy with me. The question did I love Rachel – I did not really know what love was.’49 It is partly answers such as these, when coupled to the statistics regarding female IV heroin use, that lead government researchers to conclude that ‘Gender inequalities remain a driver of ill health.’50

  Smack Attack

  Where opiates and opioids are available, people will consume them. The difficulties with the increase in worldwide heroin production have come largely since the 1960s, when heroin networks widened, and it became easier and cheaper to obtain. In 1956, Britain had only fifty-four registered heroin users. After first becoming a problem in Liverpool in the early 1970s, heroin addiction spread rapidly to Manchester and then Glasgow and Edinburgh throughout the 1980s, becoming an epidemic in the 1990s. These four cities were suddenly flooded with high-quality smokeable heroin, although most users began injecting quickly. Unemployment and poor living standards made the temporary but warm oblivion of heroin seem an inviting choice. The Muirhouse Estate in Edinburgh was famous as the setting for the film Trainspotting, based on Irvine Welsh’s novel, published in 1993, about four friends who use heroin together, living chaotic and ultimately tragic lives, before attempting to seek redemption. Trainspotting appeared in 1996, when heroin was devastating those cities. HIV was rife, along with hepatitis, and for long-term users, diabetes was associated with their general lifestyles. The people who became addicts then and who survived are in poor health now, particularly in Muirhouse. Many remain addicted, living in social housing, and still unemployed. Even those who have succeeded in getting clean are often little better off.51

  A scant five years after the beginning of Britain’s heroin troubles, Portugal found itself in the same situation. After the revolution of 1974 overthrew the authoritarian government, people became consumers, at the same time as the heroin trafficking route across Portugal and to Brazil became much more attractive for smugglers, just as the former USSR would experience less than two decades later. Heroin was an epidemic. By 2001, Portugal, previously the warehouse of Europe and a mighty naval presence across the world, had become one of the most drug-ridd
en and poorest countries in the West. The drug-using population of perhaps 50,000–60,000 drug addicts were living mainly in the Lisbon area, so the problem there seemed overwhelming, much like in Edinburgh. Faced with the need to take drastic action, the country initiated what was effectively a survival drive: it legalized all drugs in July 2001. The legalization of heroin, coupled with needle exchange and a bare-bones yet supportive healthcare system, yielded fast and unexpected results: not only did illicit drug use fall, so did rates of overdose and chronic drug-related illnesses, and HIV infection fell by 95 per cent. Health-workers handed out packs of clean needles and talked with users from mobile dispensaries. Support for those wanting to adopt MMT is widely available and supported by local pharmacies, who dispense either methadone or buprenorphine, a semi-synthetic opioid dropped on or under the tongue, which has the advantage of not suppressing the respiratory system in the same way as morphine. Checking in regularly with the treatment programme is also strongly encouraged.

  Portugal’s thirteen-point plan for decriminalization is clear and thorough, and number one is to reinforce international cooperation, before decriminalization at number two. Anyone caught with less than a ten-day supply for personal use does not face prosecution. Dealers are still imprisoned if intent to supply is proven. Written by João Goulão, a doctor specializing in addiction, it is the most impressive piece of drug legislation in recent history, after the UN’s 1988 Convention Against Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs, which outside decriminalization shares the same ethos, and concentrates on cooperation and also the monitoring of precursors used to make finished narcotic products. Although many are in favour of the Portuguese model, it has reaped such rewards for reasons that may not work in other countries. Different users around the world purchase and consume their highs in vastly different ways, and Portugal’s heroin users were mainly collected in one place, stigmatized, often homeless, and a visible problem. In more scattered populations of users, it would be hard to get the same effect. Spain and Italy both decriminalized the possession of small amounts of narcotics before Portugal, but have seen rising heroin use, and cannabis is almost endemic. But there is no denying Portugal’s achievements, and its determination to keep addicts connected to the treatment system.

  Portugal’s remarkable success in abandoning any attempt on a war on the users of drugs since 2001 is material evidence of the fact that there is no need for one. It is all the more remarkable for being implemented at almost the same moment as people began to buy their drugs on a new free market: the Internet.

  In 1971–2, students at Stanford and MIT used ARPANET, or the less-catchy Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, to conduct a marijuana deal, the first known electronic exchange (although some argue that the first true financial transaction was on 11 August 1994 for a copy of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales). Just as the original mail-order catalogues provided a way to have your fix delivered to your door, the Internet soon not only delivered, it peer-reviewed. Deals conducted online or on the street were suddenly subject to scrutiny, with ratings correlating to ‘Rush, Legs and Count’ or quality, longevity and weight per glassine packet, with such gems as ‘Fire as fuck, small bags though,’ for the Mad Dog brand of heroin available in New Brunswick, New Jersey.52 Packets are stamped with everything from guns to skulls and Louis Vuitton logos.

  Internet-based peer-reviewing systems work remarkably well in the illegal narcotics business. The forums are free to access, and consumers are quick to complain if their scores are substandard. Adulteration (the addition of other drugs) and dilution (the addition of inert substances to bulk out the product) are not as common as might be expected in an illegal enterprise. While the quality of heroin itself is variable, owing to point of origin, testing of 228 heroin samples in the UK between 1995 and 1996 revealed that nearly half the samples had not been adulterated at all.53 Another study, ten years later in New York, found that where heroin was cut, it was over 60 per cent pure, with the most frequent other additions including ‘acetaminophen, caffeine, malitol, diazepam, methaqualone, or phenobarbital’.54 Urban myths involving the cutting of street heroin with ground glass, or caustic soda, are simply myths, but the Internet offers a not inconsiderable element of consumer protection in a fraught market, particularly with the cutting of heroin scores, with fentanyl becoming more prevalent in recent years.

  What is widely referred to as the darknet is not hard to find, or to buy from. The main business of the darknet is the sale of narcotics and pharmaceuticals, followed closely by child pornography. Of these, cannabis and then pharmaceuticals take up the lion’s share, with heroin only around 5–6 per cent. The preferred currency is bitcoin, which emerged in 2008 as a new and anonymous way of facilitating online purchases. Few people truly know who created bitcoin, although the most common name given is Satoshi Nakamoto. This is an alias, and many sources point to Nick Szabo or Hal Finney, American cryptographers. Finney was the first person to receive a payment via bitcoin, and died in 2014. Szabo denies involvement. The adept and varied use of English colloquialisms – earning or ‘mining’ bitcoins requires the miner to find a number called the ‘nonce’, for example – indicates that the originator of bitcoin is not Japanese, may be more than one person, and is probably not American. Recently, Craig Steven Wright, a forty-seven-year-old Australian computer scientist, claimed to be the originator. Collectively, the founders of bitcoin are worth billions of dollars.

  Bitcoins are a source of endless speculation, but they are only a credit system, based upon the same lines as opium, tea and bullion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The bitcoin system is the work of a solitary or collective genius, as is the narcotic infrastructure of the Internet. One of the biggest drug networks was known as the Silk Road, part of the hidden or Tor services of the Internet, where users browse anonymously. The original Silk Road was shut down in 2013, and in the criminal charges against its founder Ross William Ulbricht from Austin, Texas, the FBI stated that from ‘February 6, 2011 to July 23, 2013 there were approximately 1,229,465 transactions completed on the site’.55 The resulting bitcoin commission Ulbricht earned could have been up to $80 million in a single year, mainly from the sale of narcotics. In February 2015 he was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Whether Ulbricht was ultimately responsible for the Silk Road remains unknown. His alias, ‘Dread Pirate Roberts’, is a reference to The Princess Bride, a novel of 1973 and a cult film of 1987. Likewise, the Silk Road’s replacement, Hansa, was a nod towards the original Hanseatic League, and shut down in July 2017. Its main competitor was Alphabay, the darknet’s version of eBay, which facilitated the sale of illegal arms, drugs and extreme pornography, also shut down in the same month.

  The USA has spearheaded the prosecution of narcotics retailers on the darknet, in the continued campaign by the FBI, DEA and CIA to police an industry they have no hope of controlling and can only fuel by attempting to do so. On Alphabay alone there were more than a quarter of a million listings at the time it was shut down, as the warning went out across popular mainstream web forums such as Reddit: ‘Time to clean your house and make it tidy for law enforcement.’

  Reddit itself is increasingly involved in the wider narcotics experience. The web forum site, where people gather to chat online, has various forums dedicated to narcotics, including opioids and heroin. First-time users ask questions, and people celebrate their purchases – ‘Approximately 0.3g of some lovely #4 H (not fentanyl), approximately 0.1 of some absolutely top shelf shard and two 2mg clonazepam :)’ is not an untypical post. ‘Shard’ is crystal methamphetamine and clonazepam is a benzodiazepine that is sometimes, ill-advisedly, mixed with heroin. There are also many long-term users looking for advice on how to quit, and friends and families seeking help. It is a strictly peer-monitored site and no selling or sourcing is allowed. The opioid and heroin forums are, in the main, positive and supportive, particularly for people wanting to change their lives.