Women's Views on News |
| The war on drugs is killing women Posted: 25 Nov 2014 04:54 AM PST
In July 2013, 15 year old Martha Fernback died after taking half a gram of MDMA powder – more widely known as ecstacy – that was 91 per cent pure. Her death differs from the thousands of other drug-related deaths that occurred in the same year, because of her mother Anne-Marie Cockburn’s unusual response. Martha wanted to get high, said Cockburn, not die – but the war on drugs killed her. And since Martha’s death, Anne-Marie Cockburn’s refusal to blame drug dealers, friends, or Martha herself has gained considerable media coverage, both positive and negative. The positive responses focus on Cockburn’s ability to take her daughter’s death and use it to confront the prevalence of drugs in the UK in a way that is practical and realistic. Rather than spiralling into self-pity and pointing fingers at the closest potential figures of blame, Cockburn has targeted what she believes to be the true culprit: the government, and its war on drugs. Martha’s death, she believes, would not have occurred if the UK legalised and regulated drugs, and offered neutral and reliable information to children in schools. Martha’s death was a result of a mixture of the two – when she bought her 91 per cent MDMA, Martha believed it would be the usual street purity of around 58 per cent. The often misleading and scaremongering information about drugs that is made available in schools meant that she had no way of knowing otherwise. When combined, these factors made her vulnerable. The war on drugs, like any war, needs victims. And increasingly these victims seem to be teenagers, specifically young girls and women. In society, there are certain attributes that are prescribed to young females, all of which seem to focus around the idea of purity and innocence. Martha Fernback’s death was no different; many of the initial reports focused on how shocking the death of this ‘angelic’ well-educated Oxford girl was, as well as placing blame on the male friend who sold her the drugs. Cockburn’s response to her daughter’s death seems to be an attempt to undo these stereotypes. On the website she has dedicated to her daughter, Cockburn states that Martha wanted to “get high – [she] didn’t want to die”. In general, society still does not want to accept that young girls and women have desires that can sometimes be dangerous, or ‘unpure’. We are still so fixated on the concept of girlhood being inextricably linked to innocence. It is more acceptable for men to use drugs, or to put themselves in dangerous situations as we have been conditioned to expect this from them, whereas women are meant to be purveyors of sensibility and ‘doing the right thing’. One only needs to look at the disgustingly prevalent victim-blaming towards women that still exists in society to confirm this. As Cockburn so simply put it, Martha wanted to experiment with drugs. She was not forced or coerced into it. She was not a victim in the drug-taking situation; as far as Cockburn knows, it was completely her daughter’s choice to take the drug. What is tragic about the situation is not that Martha acted on her desire – as young girls and women invariably will – it is that society still refuses to view girls and women as people with desires, who do not conform to the outdated concepts of femininity and womanhood that still exist. The other tragedy is that the war on drugs – with its criminalisation of most drugs and scaremongering drug education in schools – is set up in such a way that, although it has dangerous implications for all teenagers and young people, seems to be negatively impacting young women most strongly. The negative responses to Cockburn’s activism are slightly unsettling, as they focus less on the practicality of her ideas regarding drug regulation and more on the fact that, simply, she is a woman and a mother who is not openly crying out for the banning and further criminalisation of drugs. In a society that seems to be more focused than ever on promoting the idea of punishment and retribution, of stone-cold revenge, Cockburn’s insistence on working with the man who supplied her daughter with drugs instead of hating him is something that many people seem to find hard to swallow. In society, certain attributes and personality traits are applied to women, specifically mothers. Women are expected to be soft, to be emotional and empathetic, to be warm and caring and gentle. This applies even more so to women who are pregnant or who have children, and it is why women who do not wish to have children are often marginalised and looked down upon. It is why female predators and killers and drug users, although rarer than their male counterparts, are focused on and harshly demonised in the media. We expect this behaviour from men, society seems to be saying, but not from women. Not from you. If these women are not demonised, they are viewed as damaged or troubled, signposts of ‘innocence lost’. These stereotypes are all equally as damaging. The idea that women have to behave in a certain way, or possess certain attributes in order to confirm to society’s ideals of femininity, is problematic enough – however, it is even more distressing when a perceived lack of femininity or motherliness is used to dismiss women’s opinions and actions. Anne-Marie Cockburn is a mother, and a woman. She is also bravely and tirelessly fighting to diminish the taboos that exist in society regarding drug use, and specifically drug use by young women. Martha was young, white, well-educated, and middle-class. Despite possessing these privileges, she still became a victim of the war on drugs. This, Cockburn points out, shows why the war is not working. What are the implications of the war on drugs and Martha’s death in relation to those who are less privileged, who receive a lower standard of education, and who potentially have a wider access to drugs? If it could happen to Martha, it could happen to anyone. And as long as the war on drugs carries on, young women will continue to be its most vulnerable targets.  |
| Posted: 25 Nov 2014 01:09 AM PST
From Sue Marsh. Dear John Bercow, I was incredibly naive when I started campaigning for the rights of people with long term health conditions and disabilities. I believed passionately in democracy and that here in the UK, we had one of the best political systems in the world. I had always believed there were strict rules governing MPs and that they were held to account by customs and conventions that had served us for centuries. Sadly, that naivety is long gone. Over the last 4 years, I’ve learnt that democracy is merely an illusion. I’ve learnt that a politician can do or say virtually anything he or she likes and no-one will do anything about it at all. In the case of Iain Duncan-Smith, we have seen the results of a failure to govern the governors as never before. He has lied – not “misled” or “misdirected” – to parliament repeatedly. He has lied about who is affected by his “reforms”. He has lied about who is protected from them. He has lied about how much they have saved the treasury and he has lied about their efficacy. He has lied about the level of support for his changes and lied about the timescales of their delivery. The results of his lies are clear for all to see. Vulnerable people he promised to support go hungry or are left without care or security. Nearly a million people have been driven to foodbanks. Homelessness has risen, the benefits bill has risen and the housing bill has risen. Sanctions have soared – over 500 per cent in the case of those too unwell to work – and a fiscal black hole of billions is becoming apparent at the treasury as every one of his major schemes grinds to a halt. Universal credit, Employment and Support Allowance, Personal Independence payments, all have failed, leaving millions stuck in limbo. Yet still Mr Duncan-Smith lies and still his lies go unchallenged. This petition calls on parliament to investigate those lies and hold a full and transparent enquiry into his conduct. He has even repeatedly bullied the media not to hold him to account, can he bully you too? Is there no-one prepared to challenge this man and stop his inhumanity? Campaigners will never rest until the scale of this man’s failures are clearly exposed to the public. Until his dishonesty is fully revealed. He will not be reshuffled or sent quietly away to “spend more time with his family”. No matter how long it takes, Iain Duncan-Smith will be shown as the cruel bully he is. You could choose to make sure that happens sooner rather than later, before more thousands of lives are ruined by his incompetence and lies. You have the power to restore at least some of the democracy we have lost. But make no mistake, now or in the future, it will happen. I and many like me will make sure of it. Readers can sign the petition here. A version of this blog first appeared on 13 November 2014 on Sue Marsh’s blog Diary Of A Benefit Scrounger.  |
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