Charlie – Interview 02
Charlie tried various class A drugs at university and spent all of her savings on ketamine before weaning herself off when the effects became more negative than positive. Now she barely drinks alcohol or uses drugs but thinks that drugs should be legalised.
Before going to university Charlie only drank alcohol sometimes. During her first year at university she became a more regular user of alcohol and she would go out drinking with her friends several times a week. She drank less in hersecond year though andthinks that this is a fairly typical experience among students.
During her first year at university Charlie also tried ecstasy for the first time. In high school she knew people who did cannabis, but she wasn’t particularly interested in it. After ecstasy, she tried ketamine, which she describes as an interesting experience’ because she had never used a hallucinogenic before. She used ketamine around the time she was having relationship problems. She described it as a ‘fairly addictive’ drug and for the short time she used it, she says she took it too often and too much. She decided to stop using it because she realised that its effects had become more negative than positive. After using ketamine she experienced intense feelings of fear as well as having a very bitter taste at the back of her mouth. It also cost her a lot of money. Charlie spent all her savings buying ketamine andit amounted to several thousand pounds.
Charlie has also used acid and has had mixed experiences on it. She says her decision to take it the first time was very unwise’ and she experienced paranoid delusions. She has also tried a psychedelic drugs called 2CE. She said that she won’t go near’ cocaine because most of what is on sale is not pure. She is also aware that cocaine is produced and distributed in a way that involvesviolence, damage to forests and the environment, and exploitating people.
Charlie got all of her information about drugs from the internet. She said I made sure I researched things thoroughly before taking anything’. She alsobought some drug scales because she has always been very cautious about the amount she is taking and the effect it could have on her.
Charlie thinks that drugs should be legalised because keeping them illegal is more harmful. She thinks that drugscould be properly monitored by the athorities if they were legal. She thinks that young people are provided with badinformation that aims to scare them off drugs but this doesn’t work. She thinks health and scientific facts should be more important than arguments about whether it is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ to take drugs. The government’s priority should be to do public health campaigns, with accurate information, and schemes to reduce the harm that can be caused bydrug use.
Charlie barely drinks alcohol or takes drugs any more. The main reason, as she puts it, is that she likes living in the real world’. She also likes to be working on issues she cares about and says that regular use of drugs and alcohol would prevent her from being involved in them.
Charlie says that she is happy with how things are and finds drugs interesting to do with friends, but doesn’t think they should be used as ‘an escape’. She says that it is fun to drink or to take ecstasy on a night out, but advises othersnot to use them to try to forget what is actually goingon in their lives.