Caught by the fuzz (it's better than being swung round by the tits)

I so regularly have something illegal about my person that I regularly forget that I'm doing something that is not only prohibited, but is also regarded with contempt by many. I see nothing wrong or unusual about my use of or possession of heroin and, strange as it sounds, I just forget that I shouldn't mention it, should hide the marks and keep it on the low.

My habit, and the tools it requires, is entirely normal to me and doesn't interfere with my career or family life, so I forget what stigma it carries in the broader world.

I raise the point because over the weekend I got pulled over. When I first started to use I was very very careful about hiding gear up, stashing syringes or foil beneath carpets, all the usual paranoid precautions that keep you safe if you get stopped. I've been pulled many times, but this time I had works all over the place (I'd spilt the bag when I exchanged), I had bits of foil on the floor, lighters aplenty, and a few bags in my ashtray (I'm a non-smoker, I think it's a dirty habit). When I saw the blues go on behind me, I just thought "Shit. Here we go."

It was fine, in the end. I'd been on the phone, but my astonishingly lucky run with the police continued. Four times I've been pulled recently; once doing 90 on a 50 stretch of dual carriageway on my way to work at 4 am, twice on the phone, once as a result of cutting through a road at a prohibited time. Every time I've been carrying drugs. Twice the car has had a decent search, and they've missed it. Twice I haven't hidden my bits, I've been there for the taking, and they've not looked.

I've not even got a ticket. Nor have I been breathalysed. I think that this may be down to the way I dress and speak. I'm always tidy, and I also speak respectfully to the police. I see them as doing a job, and there is no cause to give them a hard time. When I've been nicked before (aggravated TWOC, fraud, theft, drink driving, assault), I've always been as helpful as possible, without dropping myself in the shit. I find it makes your life a lot easier, and ensures your tea isn't spat in.

It's taught me a valuable lesson though; I will always plot my bits up in future. Nor will I conspicuously break the law while driving. For a little while, anyway.

When I have been pulled, my life hangs by a thread - my family, home, job are all at risk of being destroyed. And for what?

Am I not a more useful person as I am, than as a prisoner or a homeless, jobless hustler, anxious to scrape by? I pay my bills, pay my taxes (51% of my income, inc N.I.), look after my family, maintain a job, do all the things a good citizen does, why should I be criminalised?

Why should anyone? Even those whose lives are chaotic, those who don't look after themselves, losing teeth and limbs, replacing them with abcesses and disease, sprinting from department store to crackhouse, stolen designer labels trailing in their wake - drug use is normally an effect of this sort of life, not a cause of it. What benefits does prohibition bring?

I guess we all know the arguments, but I absolutely fail to see any positives in the way things are right now.