‘If you found one of these in your child’s pocket, would you know what it was?’ the Observer asked on 21 October 1973, introducing its guide to that year’s drugs scene, over a picture of a joint and a foil square of heroin. The dossier investigated how drugs reached Britain and the economics of the trade, interviewing users and smugglers. There’s a drug-by-drug layperson’s guide and a startling photo of a row of thriving marijuana plants growing next to a Scotland Yard officer’s desk (to appear in court as evidence, the caption explains).
Other surprises include an interview with a long-term addict recovering from an overdose who explains, ‘Gabs got her heroin prescribed by doctors who, before the law was altered in the late 1960s, were allowed to do so.’ Becky, another interviewee, says: ‘I don’t really use drugs any more,’ but explains she still takes ‘a few barbs’, smokes cannabis and has ‘a prescription for speeds from the doctor to help me with my weight’. Gerrard Street in Chinatown is described as ‘to the Chinese heroin trade what Covent Garden is to fruit and vegetables,’ with ‘thin, nervy customers hanging around in doorways.’ The price of drugs is fascinating, as past prices of everything are: £1.50 for 10mg of heroin; 12p for a speed pill.
The report probed the possible motivation of the estimated 10,000 drug-dependent people in Britain (one for every 300 alcoholics). ‘There is a sense of belonging to an exclusive, even exciting, group if you’re a junkie,’ it mused, while also focusing on the ‘fear and pain’ behind much superficial counter-culture bravado. Gab had lost a good friend and become temporarily blind; Becky longed to save up and buy a house: ‘an impossible aspiration’. The conclusion: ‘99% of dependents would admit they want to be part of our world, not stuck with their own.’
