PS Hoffman's Death
In all the articles I have read after Philip Seymour Hoffman's death, two ideas/stories added something worthwhile
1 - Heroin usage isn't something you 'grow out of' http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/philip-seymour-hoffmans-death-in-l...
2 - The illegality of heroin increases the problem. http://zeenews.india.com/entertainment/celebrity/philip-seymour-hoffman-...
Although it would have been better had PSH lived to his eighties and spoken out about his usage and his ability to work and contribute while holding a habit, his death is at least resulting in discussion of a topic that otherwise gets little airtime. It's a depressing system that only allows focussing on such an important topic at the cost of a life, but it's the system we particpate in. You have three young Australians dying in one week, you get a Dateline special. Perhaps one dead Australian, if they're the child of someone well known, will result in a 6:30 current affairs story.
But level-headed, fact-based revision of an issue that results in thousands of people working their entire lives only to give all their earnings to dealers - this I am not expecting to see too soon.
How can we return the topic of decriminilisation to mainstream media, without having to offer dead bodies?
Comments
A Fickle Finger
Such an excellent question is, perhaps unsurprisingly, open to endless speculation before resolution. The mainstream media spends more time trying to guess what the public want to see than trying to cover topics even when they have an attendant drove of tragedy and stress to society and its members.
I don't know if it's my age or for real but to me it seems that the momentum of tolerance to drug use is swinging towards prohibition and away from open and dispassionate debate. When I first used cannabis in 1972 I presumed it would be legal within 10 years. No such thing unfortunately for Queenslanders and most other Australians but still, we can't ignore the improvements we have seen, sparse as they are.