Workers Online
Workers Online
Workers Online
  Issue No 14 Official Organ of LaborNet 21 May 1999  

 --

 --

 --

Piers Watch

Love is the Drug


Drugs, drugs, drugs. Piers hates 'em. And he hates people who use 'em. And so do his mates at the Daily Telegraph.

 
 

Anyone who wanted to test the sad/bad dichotomy on attitudes to drug use and abuse propounded by Workers Online last week need have looked no further than this week's Tele.

Amidst all the talk of meaningful solutions the Tele decided to make Annie Madden the symbol of their Summit coverage. Annie Madden is a drug addict. She is also an advocate for drug reform. She also had the temerity to talk about her ongoing addiction to a drug summit loaded with politicians and boffins.

In a moving intervention, Madden talked of her 13 years of heroin use in order to illustrate that not all addicts are down in the gutter, that addicts were not the enemy in this debate. Which is exactly the sort of image the Tele is instrumental in spreading. After all, far easier to dismiss a dirty junkie than look at them as part of the community.

First out of the blocks came former Rugby league writer "Gay" Chesterton, who writes colour for the Tele on the big stories of the day. Gay earned his nickname a few years ago when he wrote a story about League player Ian Roberts declaring his homosexuality. Ray wrote a glowing piece on the big fella, marred only by his inability to mention the words "gay" or "homosexual" once in his 500 words, instead reverting to increasingly desperate euphemisms such as "the choice of where to point his personal compass".

Anyway, "Gay" decided to launch into Annie in a dismissive piece titled "Annie's sick, erudite - and pathetic". His thesis, as far as one existed, was to argue that to accept the fact that heroin use existed "fell somewhere between repugnant and repulsive".

He attacked her for stating the truth: that some people lead productive lives on drugs and for not condemning drug use. Of course, this is the whole problem. Drug use is inevitable; it is the impact of drug use, particularly in the context of a black market, which is the real social problem.

But rather than engaging with the issue, Gay plays the woman: "She demands society pay for addicts' lack of self-control and indulgence by demanding heroin trials and legalised shooting galleries." Better to punish them?

It's a problem endemic in the Telegraph. In an effort to be populist, the paper creates caricatures. And when a real-life contradiction comes along: like a well-spoken addict or a tough-boy homosexual, it has nowhere to go.

Not to be outdone, Piers jumped onto Annie the next day. After all, he wasn't about to let Gay tread all over his turf of intolerance.

Before penning his piece, Piers made his presence felt at Madden's press conference, asking tasteful questions about whether her emotional speech could be attributed to her drug use. In his signature loud and overbearing way, Piers barked out his boorish questions, embarrassing other journalists who genuinely wanted to understand the issue.

Then he launched into print: "It's not the discrimination that's killing the drug addicts of Sydney," he pronounced, "it's the fact that they like to use drugs which have the capacity to kill."

In fact, they're more likely to die because the prohibition model fails. They die because the heroin they buy on the black market is dirty or too strong. They die because their needles are infected with deadly viruses. They die because the black market forces prices up to the point where they must take dangerous jobs like prostitution and thieving to earn the money to feed their addiction.

Preaching prohibition and zero tolerance is about as much use as preaching peace on earth and goodwill to all. It looks lovely on paper, until reality swallows it up.

Footnote:

Piers also mounted a spirited defence to disclosures on Mediawatch this week that 10 of 17 paragraphs in a recent piece on drugs were directly lifted from a press release from the Prime Minister's office.

His defence was basically that "the source of the data in no way altered the facts". If the facts are right, who cares where they come from.

This theory must excite the bean-counters at Holt Street who pay Piers' a princely sum for his words of wisdom. If a media release is, as Piers argues, just as acceptable in print as a genuine piece of journalism, surely our toadly target could become surplus to requirements. Food for thought when editorial budgets are next reviewed ....


------

*   View entire issue - print all of the articles!

*   Issue 14 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: Madame President
The new President of the NSW Legislative Council Meredith Burgmann has spent most of her life opposing authority. Now she has a chance to exercise it.
*
*  Unions: The ACTU Faces the Labour Hire Challenge
The enormous growth in labour hire and contracting out employment is creating a big challenge for unions worldwide.
*
*  History: The Wartime Women�s Employment Board
During World War II policy makers were forced to embraqce a unique wage-fixing method.
*
*  Labour Review: What's New from the Information Centre
View the latest issue of Labour Review, Labor Council's fortnightly newsletter for unions.
*
*  Review: Origlass Biographer Keeps Red Flag Flying
The self proclaimed 'ultra-democrat', Hall Greenland, has described his relationship with the Balmain legend Nick Origlass as "Freudian".
*
*  International: Paddy's Payback
But for the Timorese many Australian diggers, like retired wharfie Paddy Kenneally, would have died at the hands of the Japanese during WW2. Now it's time to return the favour...
*
*  Campus: Tales from the Frontline
This week's successful VSU protests seem to have killed off Kemp's ideological agenda. We go live to the protest
*

News
»  Call For IR Crisis Talks as Country Conference Looms
*
»  Workers Sacked for Body Hire
*
»  British Union Secures Free Net Access
*
»  Cab Charge Wars: SBS Workers Fight for Their Lives
*
»  State Wage Case Smooth - Except for Brack
*
»  FOI Loopholes Could Leave Public Servants Exposed
*
»  Drug Summit Misses Tokin� Gesture
*
»  Public Will Lose Again From Rail Sackings
*
»  Robin Hood Strikes Again
*
»  CPSU shows it cares�
*
»  Unions Take Action on Timor, Stolen Generation
*

Columns
»  Guest Report
*
»  Sport
*
»  Trades Hall
*
»  Piers Watch
*

Letters to the editor
»  Faction Calls Miss Point
*
»  Don't Ignore the Class Divide
*
»  Timor: Look at the Map!
*
»  Songs of the Revolution Feedback
*

What you can do

Notice Board
- Check out the latest events

Latest Issue

View entire latest issue
- print all of the articles!

Previous Issues

Subject index

Search all issues

Enter keyword(s):
  


Workers Online - 2nd place Labourstart website of the year


BossWatch


Wobbly Radio



[ Home ][ Notice Board ][ Search ][ Previous Issues ][ Latest Issue ]

© 1999-2000 Labor Council of NSW

LaborNET is a resource for the labour movement provided by the Labor Council of NSW

URL: http://workers.labor.net.au/14/d_pierswatch_piers.html
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005

[ Privacy Statement | Disclaimer | Credits ]

LaborNET is proudly created, designed and programmed by Social Change Online for the Labor Council of NSW

 *LaborNET*

 Labor Council of NSW

[Workers Online]

[Social Change Online]