10-12 Men getting high on the Cape of Good Hope.
10-15 V/O These men here in Cape town are smoking an unusual cocktail of sleeping tablets and
Marijuana.
80% of the world consumption of Mandrax sleeping tablets takes place here in South
Africa .
Side effects, like collapsed lungs, heart failure, and other related deaths caused Mandrax to be
banned in countries like Germany in the 1970's, after many Germans became too addicted to it, too
quickly. But for Germans the side effects aren't as much of a turn-off as the incredibly stiff
penalty for being caught in possession. Just one tablet will get you roughly three months in jail.
The 'High' users experience is an amazing coma-like condition. They sometimes smoke up to 40 pipes a day.
01-08 V/O Police Patrol in Munich, Germany.
V/O This is what they call Junkie-Jogging. Wherever the foundations for a drug scene are
laid, they will be broken up as quickly and efficiently as possible, and kept in check by
permanent police raids and searches.
No stone is left unturned to keep the streets clean.
01-30 SYNC Policeman "The last time we checked this area was 10 minutes ago, it doesn't matter, the more often the better.
Our job is to ensure that they don't make themselves too comfortable here. A diver
has to dive many times to get his pearls, and we have to search loads of people to hit
the jackpot."
02-10 V/O The German tendency is towards liberalisation of drugs, but here in Bavaria , the principle of Zero
Tolerance has always been very much in evidence. Even possession of the smallest amounts leads to obligatory arrest and prosecution.
Young man being searched
02-30 V/O This young man is adamant that he is clean.
SYNC " Look, nothing in my socks, nothing in my bag, I haven't got anything, no syringe, nothing"
02-50 QUESTION " Roughly how many times a day are you frisked?"
SYNC "Three to four times, depends on where I am"
03-02 SYNC Blond young man
"Believe me, if I don't get my tablets I'm going to start climbing the walls"
03-08 SYNC Police-man
"When you've shown me everything you can go"
Lubeck Law courts
03-15 V/O In the Lubeck law courts things are seen differently.
Here Judge Wolfgang Nescovic came into the public eye by introducing a sensational complaints procedure against the prohibition of Cannabis. He is a firm believer in one's 'Right to be High' and forced a climb-down on drug use in criminal law.
His views have given him an extensive following.
03-37 SYNC Judge Nescovic
"At present criminal law works to pacify society with a placebo effect - in that many people
believe that we have effective controls to stop the drugs trade. In fact the opposite is the
case. Drug consumption goes on and it is an illusion to believe that with present penal
laws it is possible to control the drug dealers."
"We know that we only impound a maximum of 5-10% of all incoming drugs. That's about
the same amount given to the police themselves for therapy by the drugs manufacturers each year ."
04-26 Harry and Monika
V/O The economics of the drug trade have always been unjust. The state helps to keep drug prices high, the big drug dealers profit and the little men are imprisoned.
A story Harry and Monika know only too well.
Back in the 1980's Harry K. already had an extensive drugs history. By the time he was ten years old he was experimenting by smoking drugs. He has paid the price for his addiction in many ways.
Seven years in prison, dozens of withdrawals and break-downs. Again and again he tried
to have self-discipline and start anew.
Time and time again he looked for a normal job and tried to build a middle of the road life.
But whenever the unavoidable relapse happened, he couldn't afford his habit. Every time the only solution was to turn to crime, to prostitution or to drug dealing.
05-28 SYNC Harry
"It became obvious to me that I was a multiple drug addict, and that is when I realised
that I couldn't justify my existence any more. So I went with a friend who I was hanging
around with at the time to Amsterdam, where we stayed for three months, injecting Heroin,
Ecstasy and Cocaine, and after three months I was ready to die. My gut feeling told me that
if I was going to die I wanted it to be on German soil. So I came back to Germany and went
back into the gay scene because I didn't know what else to do, I had to finance my massive
dependency and my debts"
06-16 SYNC Judge Nescovic.
"We worked out that throughout the history of man, that there is an incommunicable,
inherent, primal need to attain higher states of consciousness. So we set out by asking our-
selves, that if we have a right to this 'high', does the state have to supply us with these
intoxicants, or put another way, can the state interfere with our right to be 'high', as a point of
law, if it is a universal right? We looked at whether this right to be 'high' is
protected by a constitutional law of basic human rights, and we wanted to prove whether
sensible grounds exist for the interference of this right to be high. "
07-00 Party U.S.A.
V/O It's party night in Daytona beach, the USA.
The object is to get high by whatever means - Laughing gas, Marijuana
Crack or Alcohol . The main thing is to deprive the brain of oxygen. Polytoxicomania,
the abuse of as many substances as possible, seems to be
a youthful answer to modern day life.
Teenage idols like River Phoenix and Curt Cobain, both of whom died drug-related deaths,
are the role-models of this lost generation.
08-00 V/O The ideological sixties drug culture, with its alternative lifestyles and
consciousness raising ideals, is gone.
Pit and Sandy
08-35
V/O The advance of some drugs from the ghetto into the white middle classes seems unstoppable.
Pit is another man with a twenty year drug career, which he financed by dealing.
Two hours ago he was released from prison.
As he came out, he acted as a courier and is now setting to work making Crack out
of Cocaine.
Testing it on himself to gage its quality.
09-00 SYNC Pit
You filter it through a cigarette carton. Why? Because pure cotton has too many small fibres that will go in the syringe and give you cotton fever. Then... in the main line. You got that? You got that? Done. You're high. I'll tell you if it's good coke.... This is excellent coke. Excellent coke because my lips are numb, my mouth is numb and I look like a goddammed rat.
10-04 V/O Pit's girlfriend Sharon , the daughter of a business man, is twenty-three years old.
She has been smoking Crack for ten years.
Yesterday's crack bears no comparison to today's. You don't need a
lab to manufacture it. Every aspiring cook can make it on his own stove.
Smoking has the distinct advantage that infections such as H.I.V. can be avoided.
And Crack is cheap, one trip costs less than £5.
Pictures of Harry and Monika
10-42 V/O Drugs almost destroyed Harry K's life. Today he is in control. He's also employed and has a child.
11-03 V/O Harry and Monika's story is a classic tale of addiction, coming off drugs, withdrawals and new beginnings. The latest fresh start coincided with the birth of their daughter two years ago.
The responsibility made them seek medical help for their addiction.
The answer was Methadone. The dosage is decreased year by year until they are clear.
11-27 SYNC Harry
"The experience of going 'cold turkey', of coming off, is one which, if you do it two or
three times, most people fear and never want to go through again. So you inject yourself
before you come down to avoid this happening. So if you can get medical help and find a
way out using Methadone, you can find your way back into society, even though you are still
dependant. It's a blessing for everyone, it's nothing to do with being high. You take
Methadone to function normally, you don't get a 'buzz' like on heroin. You feel like a
normal person, who gets up in the morning to go to work, feels well and can do their
work."
12-18 V/O Harry K's been able to do this for some time now. He works as a handyman at a sports-
club in Munich.
He is now thirty-five years old and has taken every drug under the sun.
His drug binges used to be motivated by a sense of adventure and curiosity.
But the curiosity has gone and the adventure is over.
What is left is a sense of dissatisfaction with the reality of his everyday life, especially at the weekend.
12-43 SYNC Harry
" I don't know why this is, perhaps it is in the fundamental nature of mankind, this yearning
for the magic, the ecstatic, it just is - The normal life we live to me is unbearable. I have tried
out every drug there is, but the only drug I always go back to even today and still defend
and support is Hash, Marijuana. I will continue to be interested in and involved with any
legislation which will enable Hash to be supplied more easily and cheaply , - at least to be
tolerated in Germany."
13-24 V/O In spite of everything Harry and Monika's story is one of survival. Somehow they've always managed to find their feet.
The tattooed handyman is very popular at the spots club - more than just a handyman.
Thanks to Methadone their lives are relatively problem free for a time.
In six months their Methadone therapy will end. If everything goes well they will have cause
to celebrate, maybe with the occasional joint. They allow themselves that because it helps them to
relax.
14-00 V/O Monika herself had an unhappy childhood. Her father liked more than the
odd drink, which made him violent.
14-10
SYNC Monika
"I can only speak about my own father, about my own experience, and if my father had
smoked Hash he would have been less violent to me, to my mother and the whole family.
All I can say is that on Hash he would have treated us differently. Everyone has a right
to his own 'High' if it doesn't harm anyone else. In my opinion, whatever you do to yourself
and to your own body must be your business and no-one else's ."
14-45 V/O Amsterdam.
Holland has been trying to separate hard and soft drugs since the seventies. It was to avoid
letting dealers who dealt in soft drugs like Hash also deal in the lucrative hard drugs like
Heroin and Cocaine. So they legalised the soft drugs, and, to protect
the public, made it possible for them to be sold in coffee shops. There are now about two thousand of them in Amsterdam. Dutch interest in this erstwhile protest drug has waned since
the early days. Once 10% of all eighteen year olds smoked the drug, today it is a mere 2%.
15-26 SYNC Ben Dronkers, coffee shop owner
"It wasn't the politicians but the general public in Amsterdam and in Holland, who used
Marijuana. And they pushed for, and got, acceptable scientific proof that Hash was less
damaging than Alcohol."
15-54 V/O And today's medical goes further. It has been proven that Marijuana can have many beneficial clinical uses, including pain relief for cancer and AIDS, as well as helping to ease conditions like
like asthma and epilepsy.
Judge Nescovic's legal argument can only conclude that Hash is legal but harmful or illegal but not that harmful as an intoxicant.
16-18 V/O Experts seem to agree that sporadic use of the drug does not lead to addiction, and that physical damage, even with massive usage, seems to be minimal.
Perhaps we should all emulate the Dutch model, whereby only dealing or possession of Cannabis is an offence.
16-40 SYNC Judge Nescovic
"In our work we came to the more or less obvious conclusion
that cannabis poses no major medical or health problems. These findings were corroborated
by the Swiss Federal courts as well as by various German county courts, including the Lubeck
county court. The dangers of using of cannabis can no longer be substantiated, even by
rigorous scientific research. "
17-36 India
V/O The story of the oldest plant of our civilisation is thousands of years old.
In India the Sardou Monks smoke Hash and Opium, legally, to enhance meditative
states.
Old and new Gurus come here from all over the world to the Holy Shilom and to smoke
themselves into a state of trance, and all praise the relaxing, uplifting and consciousness
raising effect the of the 'smoke'.
18-12 Germany -Erfurt
V/O Back in Europe the debate goes on. Roughly 4-5 million Germans pay an average of £20 a month for their supply. Here at a conference on the theme of Cannabis, the Editor of the magazine ‘Hemp', Jorg
Jenetzky, argues for the legalisation of the drug.
18-34 V/O Chairing the debate is evangelical Priest Father Michael Kleim. His attitude is understanding. Although he is against drugs, he is practical enough to realise that he needs to have a working relationship with cannabis.
But opinion is firmly divided. One side argues for it to become a normal recreational drug, others are dead set against. The perennial problems like stopping children from experimenting with drugs are brought up.
This woman's son asked her to try smoking a joint with him. She wanted to understand the attraction, but turned down the joint. And Father Kleim won't be an easy convert either.
19-32 SYNC Father Kleim .
"You can't have a 'right to be high', just as obviously as you can't have the right to a
sunrise, or the right to draw breath, or to have curly hair, these are natural phenomena,
they just are, and we can't demand the right to a phenomenon. You could almost say
that you can forbid these things, but not demand them."
19-53 Songs-girl with guitar/ Meditations on Cannabis.
V/O Whilst conferences like these increase understanding between the two camps, the German anti-drug campaign continues to cost the taxpayer around £300 million a year.
20-36 SYNC Judge Nescovic.
"Even if we're talking about hard drugs, drugs which are actually dangerous, we still have to pose the question of human rights. Have we got the right to actually protect the user from himself? This is something which most drug
users don't accept, since they argue that they are only harming themselves, so why should they be punished? Dousing yourself with washing-up liquid at the supermarket could also be dangerous, are you going to punish that too?
Many substances could cause harm if used excessively?"
21-15 U.S.A.
Crack House/ John and Mason.
V/O John aged 24 and Mason, 23 , are crack-users.
Their main occupation is supplying the drug: both work as 'runners', ordering crack
by phone from the 'Juggler'. Each time it changes hands there is a profit to be made.
When necessary will mug people to feed their habit.
21-40 SYNC John
I never go to sleep. Never. I go 3, 4, 5, 7 days with no sleep. It's rough, because when you can't get it you start ‘going through it', which is kind of like withdrawal. Your bodies so worn out that wherever you go you just want to sit down and when you sit down you just automatically want to go to sleep. That's another reason why you've got to continue to smoke, to keep you awake.
22- 19 SYNC Mason
It's like taking a train ride. You hear a train in your head. You just feel mellow and then it hypes you up at the end. It only lasts a little while, that's why you've got to smoke more. You start peeping out the window... looking under the carpet... all over the carpet looking for dope. It's crazy.
QUESTION
It's crazy to be addicted to somehow a negative feeling though isn't it?
ANSWER
Yes. It's not something you want to be.
22-55 V/O The crack 'high' lasts five minutes at most, before the crash comes,
and with it the unavoidable new dose. Although crack is relatively cheap, an addict needs up to £700 a week to feed his habit.
Where cocaine lifts the spirits, crack has an negative effect on a user's social life, eating patterns, sex drive, relationships with family and friends. And everyone is susceptible.
23-23 SYNC Herman
It's not a black thing it's a drug thing. Everybody does drugs, well not everybody, but it's a drug thing.
23-35 SYNC John
Every time you see somebody holding some type of money, it doesn't even matter if it's five dollars, you just feel like running up and snatching it out of their hand. And strong-arm robbery - at gunpoint... we've been known to go through a black town and rob the black guys who are out selling the dope themselves. We'll take their money and their dope. Come back, smoke the dope and go buy more dope with their money.
24-09 V/O U.S. drug addicts pay 100 million dollars a year for their habit.
24.17 Rehabilitation centre
The government's 'Just say no ', campaign is not working.
It invests $3 million a year towards investigation, information
and therapy. But it seems that there are two United States, one normal nation and
one crack nation.
The Marchman Rehabilitation centre in Daytona specialises in crack dependancy . It's one of America's few treatment centres for white middle-class addicts.
24- 41 SYNC Tracy
I would go and either smoke crack, or smoke marijuana, or smoke anything, just trying to get away from my depression or trying to escape my feelings. And when I did so, I forgot all about them and I was concentrating on my high. And if I felt my high going away then I would go and smoke more because it's like oh my god, I'm coming down, I'm ready to go back up. And when I got back up, it's just a feeling you can never forget because it's there.
25.14 SYNC Patty
We would smoke over $1,000 in a weekend. I've robbed people. I've never robbed my friends, but I've robbed people I didn't know. I got my pay-backs for that. People got me back for that. I robbed one person and he beat me up and the cops came and I didn't even fill out a report because I was high.
25.51 V/O It seems that wherever drug use is not tolerated in the world, the user's isolation is increased.
25-57 SYNC Judge Nescovic
"Drug users, dependants, addicts, are sick people, you can't heal them by imprisoning
them. Jurors and the police are not trained in recognising these people as ill people".
26-16
V/O South Africa, the Cape.
The use of Mandrax in South Africa has become a serious problem. The depressing conditions
of township life are such that the authorities would like to drive it out, as quickly and
thoroughly as possible.
So the punishments are steep, because the Mandrax addict is a loss to the community.
As often as possible this group meet to smoke a pipe of Mandrax to cool off and and to forget.
26-43 SYNC Armando
This is the only thing to cool our minds off... to cool our minds away from gangsterism and things like that. Because when we smoke we don't worry about things like that.
27-00 V/O Those that fall unconscious to the floor can give themselves all kinds of injuries,
this is called 'Earthing'.
27-11 SYNC Armando
Sometimes people fall over. They hurt themselves like this guy here. He's hurt himself a number of times falling to the ground, dah!
27-33 SYNC Armando
When the pipe is out, when there's no more dagga in it, then your hand gets burnt. Like that it won't burn your hand.
27-44 V/O All over the world the authorities try in vain to achieve a drug-free society. But this is an International Utopia. And even without drugs, people like these would still be living in the ghetto.