The Cousins Hype

Okay. Let’s look at Part Two of the Ben Cousins doco. Did it redeem itself in viewers’ eyes? Was the glamour world of drugs which they thought coloured the first episode get replaced by some real message about the dangers of drug abuse? Channel Seven tried to dress it up as a community service with the panel of experts.
 
And I thought Brian Cousins deserves a medal for doing everything a parent could possibly do to support a selfish, self-indulgent, flawed, drugged up Peter Pan son, who apparently has never said ‘sorry’ to his Dad, Mum, brother and sisters. For what he put them through.

But I couldn’t take the hype, or Channel Seven’s self-promotion, seriously after an early exchange between host Hamish McLaughlin and sports writer Mike Sheehan.

That was after ignoring the host’s preening habit of looking straight to camera while speaking to somebody in the same room.

McLaughlin asked Sheehan how long he had been in the media.’ Forty years,’ he said.

“And isn’t this the biggest story ever?’ Yeah, right. In his jockstrap world I guess he’d never heard of 9-11, or men going to the moon, or the Bali bombing or Black Saturday.

And two other points: At not stage in all of this did I heard the word ‘illegal’. Cousins was breaking the law. He hasn’t revealed the names of his dealers . And WA Police must have gnashed their teeth at the friendship between Eagles players and convicted heroin dealer and gangster John Kizon.

The other point belaboured last night by well-meaning people was the argument that drug addiction is a health problem. An illness. A disease.

Brian Cousins even said the AFL Three Strikes policy was right and zero tolerance was wrong because ‘you can’t make a moral problem out of a health problem’. People steal to support a habit. Is that just a health problem?

Drug addiction is not a disease. It can lead to illness and disease. Like cigarette smoking is an addiction. It can lead to diseases like lung cancer and blood clots.

Alcohol addiction is not a disease. It can lead to diseases like brain damage and cirrhosis of the liver.

I believe that if you neatly brand heroin or cocaine addiction as an illness then you are giving an addict an excuse. Conveniently forgetting that you snort the first line, inject the first muck of your own volition. It’s not compulsory.

Friday, August 27, 2010

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2010