Question Time

Hello Shaun,

I'm from the school you spoke to on Friday morning. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you afterwards I was trying to take everything in but can I just say that I honestly thoroughly enjoyed your talk and it really has opened my mind up to a lot of things. I even spent Saturday watching some of your YouTube videos and explaining your story to my boyfriend which led to a rather heated discussion about how prisoners should be treated!

I would just like to ask a little question really, and that is just how do you feel about people taking drugs now? Obviously you don't want them going through those hard times but do you think drugs are acceptable if you take prison out of the equation? 

I ask this because I have seen someone die due to drug intake in front of me, had to deal with a sister who would sleep with older men to get drugs (and several times ended up pregnant, youngest 13) and a brother who went to prison for drug dealing and it absolutely killed me to think of what he could have gone through in there. I don't think people that deal or do drugs are bad people at all, and don't deserve to go through experiences like you did.

Lastly I would just like to say how much I respect you for deciding to go into schools to share your story and warn us of be dangers and reality that is out there. I've always thought of the negative consequences of drugs and am rather anti-drugs for my own personal use after my experiences but I had truthfully never thought of the realities of what prison could do to you and what you have to endure.

Thanks again for your talk it has truly enlightened me,

Claire

 

My response: 

Thanks, Claire. Your story is really moving, and I appreciate you sharing it. So sad to read about the devastating consequences drugs have brought to your brother and sister, and that someone died right in front of you.

You asked how I feel about people taking drugs, and if drugs are acceptable if prison is out of the equation. I’d rather young people didn’t do drugs, and channelled their energy into positive things. In my opinion, the present equation of how society treats drug users is all wrong. People tend to do drugs because something is missing from their lives, or they have some kind of inner turmoil. I feel that a lot of them are vulnerable young people, and should be given counselling, therapy, drugs education and be guided into positive activity. Instead, they are rounded up and thrown into prisons where hard drugs are readily available. Where I was incarcerated, scared young people ended up joining gangs and graduating from doing soft drugs before their arrests to shooting up heroin and crystal meth. Surrounded by criminals, they learnt that way of life. They had little chance of adapting to society when they were released with drug addictions that had multiplied in strength. They nearly all came right back to prison. It’s a disaster for society and the taxpayers, but big business for prison industries and politicians. 1 in 100 adults are now in prison in America, and private prisons are paying politicians to tighten laws even further. I don’t want vulnerable young people going through hard times like that here in the UK, but with the US private prisons setting up shop here, it’s going to get more like America.

I wish you happiness in life, 

Shaun 

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Shaun Attwood Chris Dorner