| 1 | 1 | | Phil Cooper was a junkie's junkie. If there were pills going around, and he could |
| 2 | | handle a dozen, everybody else reckoned that they ought to be all right on rather less |
| 3 | | than half that. In search of a fix, he has injected scotch and drained 15 bottles of kaolin |
| 4 | | and morphine. Phil was a danger to himself, falling stoned through a window 50 feet up |
| 5 | | and, by his own admission, a liability to his family. |
| 2 | 6 | | He won't thank me for retelling any of this, and not only because of the resistance |
| 7 | | he has already encountered in his new role - discussing drugs with youngsters. He refuses |
| 8 | | to make any play of the days before he quit drugs 10 years ago, unless specifically asked |
| 9 | | by his audience. 'I don't glamorize it. I don't go on about my experiences because it |
| 10 | | looks as though I am saying, don't do this because I did, and this is what happened to |
| 11 | | me,' he said. |
| 3 | 12 | | But his credibility arises out of his background. The prickly truth is that the scar |
| 13 | | over his left eye, put there by a bottle-wielding pusher who suspected Phil of betraying |
| 14 | | him, makes him better qualified to talk about the drugs scene than a teacher armed only |
| 15 | | with the well-meaning but patchy government pamphlets on which many schools rely. |
| 4 | 16 | | Phil is cannily blunt in his overtures to often sceptical teenagers. 'I begin by saying |
| 17 | | that I haven't come to tell them not to take drugs. I say it makes no difference to me |
| 18 | | because I won't be seeing them again anyway.' What follows is a two-hour session in |
| 19 | | which Phil, 35, explains the facts about drugs, dealing the youngsters a 'full deck of |
| 20 | | cards' instead of the meagre hand they may have picked up from ill-informed friends or |
| 21 | | media hysteria. |
| 5 | 22 | | The studied indifference with which he greets a class cannot conceal an element of |
| 23 | | the convert's zeal. Phil's sessions blend his observations of addicts with one-man playlets |
| 24 | | and videos, and involve as much audience participation as possible. Phil is apt to break |
| 25 | | abruptly into one of his own poems, or puzzles his listeners by chalking up 'crisp packet' |
| 26 | | or 'sugar lump' on a blackboard during a discussion about how addicts revert to childlike |
| 27 | | behaviour. (The explanation, usually prompted by an intrigued question from Phil's |
| 28 | | audience, is that the rustle of a plastic bag, and sparkle of sugar crystals, can fascinate a |
| 29 | | drug user whose senses are playing tricks on him as much as they would a child who has |
| 30 | | just discovered these sensations). |
| 6 | 31 | | The highlight of Phil's sessions is a game called 'name that substance'. 'I get people |
| 32 | | out to taste and identify various powders. Everybody says something completely different |
| 33 | | and they feel embarrassed when they hear the answers,' he said. Phil's assortment |
| 34 | | includes glucose, flea powder and flour. 'The point is that if they do use drugs, they will |
| 35 | | never know what they're taking.' (The economics of the drugs market dictate that addicts |
| 36 | | are buying a great deal of poisonous trash for every precious fix). |
| 7 | 37 | | Phil is critical of official literature on drugs, which includes a warning to parents to |
| 38 | | be on their guard against stray postage stamps in a teenager's bedroom. They were once |
| 39 | | used for taking LSD but Phil points out that the drug is now rarely available in liquid |
| 40 | | form. He has sent the Home Office a list of proposed revisions to their pamphlets. |
| 8 | 41 | | His past has caused suspicion in his new career, although he is scornful of any |
| 42 | | suggestion that he could ever go back to drugs. He now lives quietly in his native North |
| 43 | | West, wary of the disgruntled dealers whose trade he is spoiling. He kicked his habit after |
| 44 | | shattering damage sustained in his fall forced him to prove he could salvage something |
| 45 | | from his life. He set out as a travelling writer and one of his poems, on glue-sniffing, was |
| 46 | | picked up by a local paper, and led to bookings with youth groups. |
| 9 | 47 | | Perhaps the most thought-provoking feature of Phil's unorthodox performance is |
| 48 | | that it is given by a former hard case of the drugs scene who admits that he couldn't |
| 49 | | survive as an addict today. 'In my time you could always find work to pay for drugs. |
| 50 | | That's not true now. There are more rip-offs and there is more violence,' he said. |
| | | |
| | | Steve Smith in 'The Observer', June 21, 1987 |
