Graham Norton’s in the firing line today, for saying that he’s taken drugs in the past because he, erm, enjoyed taking them:

The only time I took ecstasy was years and years ago. It was absolutely amazing. It was just fantastic – really, really fun.

This put the wind up the National Drug Prevention Alliance:

We’re appalled, it’s absolutely mind-blowing that somebody has said that.

Of course, to suggest people enjoy taking drugs is heresy. Nobody who takes drugs can possibly enjoy it, mainly because they’re all crackheads going nowhere in life who will end up on the streets and probably dead by the age of thirty. Nobody – repeat nobody – could possibly take recreational drugs for enjoyment, so Graham Norton is a big fat irresponsible liar, and his pants are, indeed, flaming.

At least, that’s what I think the National Drug Prevention Alliance must want us all to think.

Perhaps if we were to take a more reasoned approach to drugs and their various uses, then some of the drugs education might actually get through. Perhaps something more along the lines of David J’s story, summarily (but well worth reading the full thing):

I had a great time on drugs. But I’m happy to be clean.

The way we seem to be educating kids about drugs these days is roughly the same as the “Don’t have sex, or you will get pregnant and die” method of sex education. The longer it takes to bring us into the real world, to actually openly discuss the real issues with the kids on the frontline of the “Drugs War”, the longer it will take for the problems to be properly addressed.

One final thought: Perhaps we all just misheard him.