Well darlings,
If there is one thing that the Kate Moss drug scandal has proved it's that there is one interpretation of the law for the rich and another for the poor. Cocaine Kate, as she has now been nicknamed, has been wrung out and left to dry for a crime that in her circles, and in most celebrity circles, has become socially acceptable. It is openly spoken about and joked about - even publicly on television. And that may be the trouble: being a celebrity, or a person "in the public eye" is often a joke. It's a piss-take at the expense of the normal man and woman in the street. Where we go to work on an egg, some of them go to work on a line or two!
Is it any great stretch of the truth, or of the imagination, that many of the best people at many of the best parties snort coke? I don't think it is - for even those that may not actually take the recreational drugs at these events will tell you about them, they seem quite happy to accept it goes on. I mean when was the last time you heard of a celebrity shunning a party because there would be drugs there? And when was the last time you heard of anyone attending one of these "dos" calling the police in because people were snorting illegal substances, or there were tracks to be found all around the rest-rooms? It doesn't seem to happen, does it?
So you may ask: why has Kate suffered when she is only one of so many who commonly live this kind of a lifestyle? My own views are that she has upset the wrong people in the media. So much of the stuff that appears in newspapers and especially in magazines about our celebrities is utter rubbish; nothing more than space-filling twaddle for the masses that for good or for bad is completely fictitious. Mostly our celebrities accept it and will ignore it; sometimes, perhaps in a television interview, they will joke about - but rarely will they challenge it. It's all part and parcel of the job and it goes with the territory - and it could also have a lot to do with the adage: "any publicity is good publicity", for nothing hurts a celebrity more than not being talked about!
Referring to drug taking, when a top model tells you: "It is a problem in the industry, but it always has been and it always will be. It will never disappear." (Estonian model Olga Serova), and: "They (models) all do it, I am sorry. Everybody does it." (Natasha Lewis, a freelance presenter on a fashion television channel), perhaps it was a little unwise of Kate to sue the Sunday Mirror after they reported that she collapsed into a drug-induced coma during a visit to Barcelona in June 2001. Unable to prove the story, Mirror Group Newspapers Limited had to "accept that the allegations were false and should not have been published", and the two parties subsequently agreed on a substantial figure in damages. But, with that kind of water under the bridge, is it any surprise that later on the Daily Mirror should come up with "proof in pictures" of Kate's habit? I think not.
It seems to me that Kate never learned not to bite the hand that was feeding her. Yes, it may have been the likes of H&M, Burberry, and Chanel who paid her the big money - but they only pay the big money to big names, and without the support of the media nobody is a big name for long. The first two of those companies have now cancelled her contract and the last one won't be renewing theirs. Why? Well, they give a variety of reasons and talk about "role models". Poppycock! They have only reacted as they thought they should be seen to react! These companies may have their "rules" about drug taking, but I think they know, we know, and everybody knows that the next model to step into Kate's shoes will by all the odds lead a very similar kind of lifestyle, with very similar habits. However, as long as that model plays the game she will be a big name and have a great career that the media will hype. Celebrities fall out with the media at their peril, for whilst the media has the power to create them, it also has the power to destroy them - and that it can do almost overnight.
Smelling the blood from the Mirror's morsel, all the tabloids are now alive and running with lurid allegations, stories and revelations about Kate involving sex and drugs. "Coke snorting Kate Moss has three in a bed lesbian sex sessions" was just one of the headlines out there. Even as far afield as Australia this story is big news where AM reported: others simply note her longevity, saying that quote, "as bisexual libertine drug addict supermodels who sleep with their friends' husbands go, Kate Moss has come out of this quite well." Not that well, darlings!
Kate has not done anything that countless thousands of other people don't do too, and whilst some might say that she's a role model and as such she shouldn't be seen doing such things, we ought really to remember: she isn't seen - it's only the media that actually puts her private life in front of us - which begs the question: should they? Are they doing it to "save" us from something, or are they only doing it in order to make money? I think we all know the answer to that one.
In the dog eat dog world that those in the public eye live, this has now become big-big - so big that even the London Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, has seen fit to jump on the bandwagon by saying: "If we have an allegation which is so visible to the public, with a person who is such a role model, then it seems to be only appropriate the police service would investigate that." Really? To me that suggests that were it not "so visible" with someone who is "such a role model" then it would not be "appropriate the police service would investigate that." There's a hell of a lot in that statement - think about it!
The thing that annoys me about all this is the double standards throughout. Everybody has heard about the extensive drug taking in the "favoured" people's world, but when have you known the police to raid one of their parties? Even when there was open discussion (two years ago now?) about whether it was the BBC or Channel 4 that employed the most drug-takers, did the police investigate? Not to my knowledge, they didn't. But at the same time the everyday pubs and clubs for our people off the street were (and still are) living in fear of losing their licences by a police raid catching some poor punter with an ecstasy tablet on them. One law for the rich...?
To my mind, as long as they are not promoted - especially to the young - recreational drugs should be a matter of personal, but informed, choice. The fact that they are illegal does not make them bad - if they are bad, then they are bad - the legality of them is totally inconsequential to what they are. Alcohol is perceived as bad by many people - the fact that it is legal doesn't change that - but it does mean that those people who do enjoy a drink do not automatically become criminals!
Many things have been illegal - including homosexuality (and it still is in many parts of the world) but we have learned that to automatically make someone a criminal solves nothing - it just creates problems. We shouldn't forget that America made alcohol illegal for a time, and look where that went! And over here gambling was once illegal - but now we have a National Lottery and local councils pleading for Mega-Casinos! There are many things that some people may see as bad out there, but making them illegal solves nothing. And times do change. We need to accept the world that we live in and work with it, not against it. Drugs aren't a new thing, they've been around for centuries in different forms - even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictitious character (and world hero), Sherlock Holmes, was known to use morphine and cocaine, as many people of that time did.
Today some people talk about the proliferation of drugs - but are they correct? I seem to remember as a youngster there was never any problem obtaining a reefer, magic mushrooms, or a freshly dosed sugar cube (the styles of those times), and none of them were so expensive that you had to go mugging in order to buy them - that only came later, after "the authorities" put the pressure on and created a money-making market for every enterprising crook and thug to exploit! A market that's now progressed into producing gang warfare and gunfights!
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that drugs are a good thing, or suggesting that anyone should take them - just that the problem is not with the drugs, it's with the people and the law. An analogy: If world-wide we made alcohol illegal tomorrow, there would not be one less alcoholic on the planet - but in no time at all there would one hell of a lot of nasty people providing a black market of booze (some of it lethal) at extortionate prices, and one hell of a lot of criminal activity occurring to get the money in order to feed the habit. Likewise, if we made gambling illegal again there would be no fewer compulsive gamblers - we would simply return to the bad old days of the "runners", remember them?
There must come a day when the world will wake up to the fact that making something illegal, something that at the time we might consider to be undesirable, never cures the problem or even protects our children from it - often it only creates another problem, one that can be far more of a threat to society. It hasn't worked with prostitution, gambling, alcohol, or even homosexual activity - all things that have been illegal at some time or another. It will never work with drugs.
Drugs are illegal today and society demands that our nightclubs are forced to try to run a "clean" venue - and they do try - but none-the-less for all their efforts at many of them more than half of the punters are still likely to be as high as a kite before the night is over - and anybody not realising that is living in cloud cuckoo land! In these days of fear and terrorism there are far more important things for the police to be doing than trying to nail a criminal record on any person who should happily pop a pill at a disco, whilst at the same time they (the police) embarrassingly (for them) are seen to ignore the celebrity coke snorters! There should be one law for all - and that law should be sensible.
Room for thought: legalise drugs and overnight you will decimate all drug-related crime - the muggings and the burglaries, and you will immediately put the gangs and the Drug Barons out of business. And if you want another controversial one to consider: legalise and licence brothels and you will decimate the HIV and AIDS (and all the other sexual diseases that today are taken home to the missus) that are spread by poor unhealthy girls forced onto streets by their unscrupulous pimps, and you will at the same time stop the illegal trade of smuggling women into the country who are then "owned" and forced into prostitution.
Two radical changes that many people may not like to see - but both of them coming with many benefits for society as a whole. Isn't it time we grasped reality and made them? Isn't it time we lost this infatuation we have for creating criminals out of ordinary people?
More celebrity nonsense: Jordan is reported by the Sun (so it has to be true!) to have dialled 999 and demanded the police escorted her when she went for a hair-do in Brighton - because she didn't want to be photographed! Seven officers in three police cars are said to have raced to the scene. Again, one law for the rich...?
Rick Parfitt, of Status Quo, had a shock when he woke up in bed next to an electrician and his wife after a heavy drinking session. He told the Mirror: "I'm a bloke in a rock 'n' roll band and I'm only human. The temptations are there." Them too, eh? That must have been one hell of a night!
And finally, Robbie Williams is said to have told Chris Evans on Radio 2 that he predicts an alien invasion within the next seven years. I guess he thinks the humans will be coming to take him away, aha!
See you all next week...
"The Bitch!" 24/09/05.

About The Author

Michael Knell
"The Bitch!" column may be freely re-produced on any web site but only in its entirety and with the linked acknowledgement that "The Bitch!" writes for AstaBGay at http://www.astabgay.com attached to the article. On past form this column can sometimes be extremely controversial therefore it must be accepted as a condition that AstaBGay shall not be held liable for any losses or damages incurred by those who choose to reproduce these articles on their web sites.
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