ELIZABETH NICKSON SEES A METHOD IN BRITAIN'S DRUG MADNESS

I have been entertaining myself recently with the imaginary spectacle
of Tom Parker Bowles thrashing around in a posh British dry-out
clinic. In Cannes two weeks ago, the 24-year-old son of Prince
Charles's mistress, was caught admitting to selling and using hard
drugs. Parker Bowles was exposed in a honey-pot sting, by a hack-ette
employed by the ever-insouciant Rupert Murdoch.

I am busy imagining Parker Bowles deciding which parent will be
accepting the lion's share of the blame and what he is going to call
his Higher Power. There's nothing quite so amusing as an Old Etonian
modernist coming to grips with submission to God. Can we all picture
the hell of family therapy day? Will the Prince be summoned along with
Camilla? Will Tom's father, Andrew, be there? Will Charles hang his
head and apologize for not following his feelings and marrying Camilla
when he had the chance?

This line of thought is just about illegal in the New Britain whose
media is crossing its collective heart again today and promising not
to intrude upon the private lives of the Royal Family anymore. And
really, really for sure this time.

But I couldn't help it. Last Tuesday, the Standing Committee on Drug
Abuse reported that amphetamine and heroin use had increased 8-fold in
the last 10 years among 15-year-olds. That means it's now, overall,
five times greater than in any other European country. The only
solutions, the report claimed, were to apply extra money to treatment
centres and to change the perception of drug use from being wildly
fashionable to not at all.

Are we laughing? Drugs are way, way fashionable. Parker Bowles is part
of a group, called the Throne Rangers, who troll London night life
with Prince William. The broadsheets witter with terror as they
contemplate the future King being as drugged out as most of his peers
who are living the fashionable London life.

And unfashionable hinterland life. Cocaine, heroin and ecstasy rule
from Glasgow to Brighton and all the villages in between according to
a new cult youth drug film called Human Traffic. Doesn't say much for
Tony Blair's Cool Britannia, does it?

But let's say Britain had the political will to actually solve this
problem and gave a little more than the recommended $700-million to
new treatment centres. Having observed the recovery process a few
times, I am seeing a genuinely New Britain forming here.

Put in the simplest possible terms, this is how the treatment and
recovery process works: physical detox, followed by floods of really
bad feelings that you have stuffed by taking drugs. Lots of guilt
follows. This torment goes on for ages, while you pray and spend hours
in therapy and 12-step meetings, confessing and twisting in agony.
Then, inexorably, as you start to grow up and make amends to those
you've hurt, good feelings start to trickle in. You realize you have
the ability to choose between feeling good and feeling bad and --
ideal scenario -- you realize that virtue makes you feel good, and
vice bad.

So what if, instead of gutting the world of as much treasure as
possible and drugging themselves into oblivion on the weekend, all
these kids decided to make their world a better place? What if they
started with their homes and families, then went on to their streets,
neighborhoods, villages and so on?

Of course, if the youth of Britain started feeling all their feelings,
then they might object to the increasingly sharp divide between rich
and poor, and to the price-fixing oligarchy that still runs things in
this country, despite the noble efforts of Saint Tony. Then they might
do something about it. No, better to keep them stoned and dying young
by inches.

Ah, Utopia. Tom Parker Bowles is not actually in treatment. He was not
even fired. The public relations firm he works for said, why? On those
grounds, we'd have to fire everyone else too. Very cool, Britannia.