Last Saturday Mick Boskamp turned 66 years old. On that day, the journalist, expert by experience and former client of Castle Craig, remembered the letter he wrote to Het Parool a few years ago, which caused a storm.
Last weekend I turned 66. During the amazing day my love gave me, there was a crazy moment when I felt guilty for having such a good time. I had to think of Peter R. de Vries who would also have turned 14 on November 66th. At that moment my thoughts drifted to the letter I wrote to Het Parool in September 2019.
It was just after lawyer Derk Wiersum was shot dead that I had to write it myself. Titled 'Coke sniff, there's blood on your hands', the letter went viral.
The last paragraph read:
If you are planning to score a gram of coke for the weekend, think of Derk Wiersum, but especially of his wife and children, think of all those innocent people who are still going to be killed and how nice it feels when there is no blood on your hands.
The letter reached politically The Hague and it went wild on Twitter. One was behind my message and the other, like MissLizz, tweeted:
A bit of an unsophisticated story. Ex-junk, who is proud to be over his addiction. I'm not into drugs, but to blame users is an exaggeration. I think it's more the bankruptcy of the police and government.
I didn't think it was necessary to get involved in the discussion at the time. I had made my point. But now afterwards I say to MissLizz:
You are absolutely right. It is the bankruptcy of the police and government. And we've known that since Prohibition and the War on Drugs. But the user's share in the success of these ruthless drug criminals has remained virtually underexposed all these years.
Because suppose you sometimes drink a glass of wine. Would it taste as good to you if you knew that the road from grape to glass was paved with the remains of horribly murdered men and women? I don't think so. Deep down, your conscience would say, "I don't want to stuff those bastards at all."
And there's something on top of that. Since I got the tools for recovery almost 10 years ago at Castle Craig in Scotland, I became open to spirituality. I have come to believe in a higher power and that you get what you deserve. I still stand by what I wrote in that letter to Het Parool. But I'd rather warn cocaine users rather than condemn them, because because coke is a product made with blood, sweat and more blood, karma could be a bigger bitch than many people think.