giving barbie heroin to the kids – is it wrong to drug children?

The hangover from Scarlet Fever lurks in the household like a persistent stalker outside the bathroom window.

Headaches abound, and everyone is clamouring for drugs. Everyone apart from me, of course, because I am harder than a diamond and actively enjoy suffering because it reminds me how awesomely brave and stoic I am, like Joan of Arc, but with better hair.

At times like these, I thank all that is holy for Barbie heroin, mother’s little helper, also known as junior paracetamol.

"Mummy says this will have to do until Mr Big scores some of the pink stuff."

Ah, the crimson-hued bringer of peace, the glittering syrup of silence, the strawberry-flavoured elixir that makes hurty tum-tums go bye-byes at bedtime.

It came as somewhat of a blow, therefore, to read a report from the Food Commission revealing that a huge number of junior medicines are jam-packed with a cocktail of synthetic dyes, preservatives and sweeteners, all of which are banned in food and drink made for young children.

Apparently, junior paracetamol isn’t extracted from organic pomegranates, the glitter isn’t fairy dust and when we give them a painkiller, we might as well be injecting them in the eyeballs with amphetamines or passing them a crack pipe (as if! That crack is all mine).

A conspiracy of silence surrounds the administering of infant paracetamol. Parents who would rather gnaw off their own arm than give their children sweets will cheerfully funnel neon pink numbing sparkle juice into their offspring at the merest hint of an injury or an ache.

For all those parents confused about the difference between additive-riddled sweets and additive-riddled junior medicines, I have compiled an at-a-glance guide.

Sweets are:
(a)     The devil’s own work and single-handedly responsible for the rise in childhood obesity, diabetes, tooth decay, gun crime and global warming.
(b)    Bad because they make Tilly hyperactive if she so much as SNIFFS a Starburst.
(c)      Ultimately pointless because in time, Tarquin and Jemima will actually prefer dried kumquats and candied beetroot to a packet of Haribo or a bag of space dust.

Junior medicines, on the other hand, are:
(a)     A bloody Godsend. Put your thumb over the ingredients label and pour a spoonful would you? EastEnders is on in 10 minutes and I can’t hear the telly through the screaming.

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Tell me your worst ever holiday – mine was agreeing to go camping with heroin addicts

News that foreign holiday sales have slumped in the recession and that people are opting to stay local for their annual summer break reminds me of a holiday I spent under the stars with two heroin addicts going through cold turkey. Ah, those where the days when I knew how to have fun.

These days, the fact that I agreed to go camping at all seems as mind-bogglingly deranged as the fact that I agreed to go camping with two heroin addicts.

While I still can’t remember why the trip ever seemed like a good idea, I think my boyfriend sold it to me on the basis that we’d never actually seen the addicts move, therefore the likelihood of the whole venture actually happening was somewhere between ‘no chance’ and ‘only if hell freezes over’.

"The heroin's nearly cooked, love, do you want yours with beans?"

He was wrong. What we didn’t know was that our friends were planning to use the holiday as a convenient time to quit heroin – all that fresh air, a break from routine, a seven-mile walk across scrubland to the nearest hamlet; the conditions were perfect.

As soon as I was informed of their plan (after I’d pitched my tent), I was struck by the irony. As far as I’m concerned, the grim, joyless pain of camping is one of the only things on the planet that could persuade me to try heroin in the first place.

What my friends had forgotten was one vital fact: heroin users are unbelievably resourceful, especially when it comes to finding heroin.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed watching Trainspotting. I didn’t appreciate living it quite so much, especially as all that separated me from two furious, frothing lunatics was a thin sheet of canvas and a family-size pack of toilet paper. Within hours, there was weeping, gnashing, cursing, begging and threatening. I’m not proud of the way I dealt with the situation.

I swiftly realised that the one thing that had made my friends bearable in the first place had been the industrial amounts of heroin they pumped into their veins and that without it, they were interminable. By the first night I was practically begging my friends to hitchhike to the nearest town to score some drugs – if not to ease their withdrawal symptoms, then to give to me so I could get a little bit of sleep.

On day two, they did just that. We didn’t see them for hours, and when they returned, they were their old selves – barely coherent and horizontal. The rest of the trip passed in companiable silence, bar the odd reminder not to leave discarded needles outside the tent or to leave lit cigarettes unattended.

There is a happy end to this story – my friends did manage to kick their habit. Ten years after our camping holiday.

Anyone else out there with a truly appalling holiday to share?