New Social Art School Projects - Tillydrone Miss Brown
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Miss Brown in her own flat, April 2007
Miss Brown drug dealer
A friend had already told me about her before I moved here. We met and I liked her. No matter how different our lifestyles, we get on and we can talk about anything and everything. She doesn’t keep it secret to me what she’s doing. I’m interested and I think her story is important. Her life is a reality to many people and I’d like the world to understand. Another thing: She can speak for Scotland. She’s 31 years old.
I grew up in Stoneywood, between Bucksburn and Dyce. I lived there until I was 17 and moved in with my boyfriend in Logie. I was put in prison when I was 23 and served a year and nine months out of a three and a half years sentence. After that I was in a hostel in Crown Street for two and a half years before I got this flat through the council. I moved in here about 2003. Tillydrone is a very diverse place. You’ve got the people who work for a living and are law-abiding citizens. You’ve got the privately owned houses where people live normal lives – whatever normal is. And then you’ve got the skyscrapers with a lot of activity! You’ve got the kind of people who’ll obviously accept what I do - even if they don’t do it themselves – and they are not likely to stick me in.
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Drug addicts are treated as second-class citizens by society. But I do have morals and principals. My habit is my problem so I won’t steal from people. I can’t do that to anybody. I understand that a majority of drug addicts possibly steal or rob, but it’s desperation that makes them do it. I have never done that in my life. My habit is my responsibility. I’m not condoning what I do, but this is my way to feed my habit. I sell drugs to people who want it. I don’t have to tell them, they will phone me. It’s supply and demand, and it’s illegal so you can’t go into the shop and buy it like an alcoholic can. I’m only selling to people who are already addicted and I would never consciously give somebody their first bit or sell to kids, as I would never give somebody their first injection. I don’t want that on my conscience.
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I was 17 and he was 26. Oh, I thought he was gorgeous and lovely and the sun shone out of his arse! He used to take E’s and coke and I had gone through all that as well. He had taken heroin a couple of times and he used to inject speed. Needles and things were like a different world to me. I was surprised but I thought that, at least, he was decent enough to tell me. I always used to hang about with people older than me. I don’t know why. I grew up quicker because my mum and stepdad were alcoholics. At the same time they both worked for a living. They would never go to the doctor and tell. It was hidden from everyone apart from the shop owner! So they lived a normal life with an alcoholic addiction. I hated the drink. Oh, it was disgusting to come home and see my mum pissed. My dad was a binger; he wouldn’t go to work for three weeks. When he was sober, you would know. One; he would go to work and two; he was always carrying a bottle of IrnBru!
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One day my boyfriend had some heroin. The only thing I knew about it was something I had seen on the telly; a punk guy from the 80s, having a hit with a belt around his arm. It was an advert about the risk of ODing. So, when my boyfriend said it was heroin I just thought: Needles. Addiction. OD. Die! I was like, “No, you’re all right, I don’t want any.” But a friend explained that it wasn’t like that. He said that you can smoke it. He wasn’t being persuasive, just trying to explain and he said that you don’t get addicted the first time. Of course, that’s how it starts off. Once you’ve tried it and liked it, obviously. That’s the problem. Don’t ever! Because most people will like it. We started off, like most people do, once a month. It becomes every weekend and next thing it’s a couple of times a week. By the time you realise that you’re taking it too much and you have to stop, you’re having withdrawals, and it’s too late. But people keep saying, ‘I know, I’m nae stupid. I will watch what I’m doing and I’ll stop.’ But you don’t see it coming. Hindsight, that’s such a wonderful thing! I got addicted. It probably took a couple of months to build up to that stage. After a year and a half I started injecting. I was surrounded by needles and looking at my boyfriend injecting. It was one night where we only had a £20 bag and it was a really shit size. I knew that it wasn’t going to sort me out. And I knew that, by hitting it up, it would. So that was the first time I put it in the spoon. He helped me and I instantly felt the rush. You’re feeling so shitty with withdrawals and within a couple of seconds you’re just being normal and it’s so fucking relieving. Oh, it was beautiful. That’s what people get addicted to. Instant pain relief. And if it’s really good gear it makes you wasted, which is even better because you get a gouge. It looks terrible, fucking awful, but you just feel lovely and you can escape reality. Like people do when they go out drinking on the weekend, letting their hair down and leaving problems, of whatever kind, behind.
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My boyfriend was the one that scored. I didn’t really know anybody so, I suppose, I was quite dependent on him. He was driving a drug dealer’s car because the drug dealer didn’t have a license. So he would drive him about to do his dealing. This is basically how we fed our habit. He got caught, got a five-year sentence and went to prison. That’s when I started dealing. But I’m sure I came off it at first, just after he went to jail. All I did was cry all day. The dog beside me, feeling sorry for me! So I persuaded my doctor to give me Valium for two weeks and, because I was so upset – ‘Oh my god, I’m so lonely’ - I wasn’t really concentrating on how bad I felt physically. Now a lot of people that I went to school with had turned out to be addicts and they started coming to me, asking me to get them gear. So I would get a bit myself for doing that for them. Nine months later this guy asked me if I would sell for him. I sold ten quarter-grams a day, which was £250. And I was given fifty quid’s worth of gear for it. At the time it was great ‘cause I couldn’t afford it myself. I used to get a giro every fortnight, pay my gas and electric and food and then I would pay for a quarter-gram for my boyfriend in jail. At one point a friend handed me some money to buy for him. I bought an eighth, sold it, doubled the money and gave him his money back. And then I doubled my money again. It went really well. I mean, I grew up in a working class family. I never had any money. I had worked before, but only for a couple of years. As an office junior, the most I came out with was £320 a month. And suddenly I made 500 quid in a day! Half was to go on more gear and the rest was mine to spend. I couldn’t believe it. It was like winning the lottery. It’s all mine, mine, nobody else’s! I remember throwing all the money up in the air. I went into town the next day and got a pair of boots and heaps of clothes. I bought another eighth and it went on. Of course my habit went up and up and up. But I was still clearing about £200 a day. For the first time in my life I had more money coming in than had to go out on bills and food. I got a phone line put in, I got a new carpet in the living room and I paid somebody to lay it. I got a washing machine, brand new, out of the shop, the second cheapest one. I paid it off in six months. I was ecstatic because it’s the first time I had something brand new in my life. A washing machine? Never heard of such a thing! My mum always got second-hand from friends or relatives. Everything in my house was always somebody else’s. At the January sales I went into Argos and got a stereo. It felt so good to buy something in a box with instructions and batteries and remote control. No scratches or fag burns, brand new! I handed over 350 quid for one item and I’d never dreamed I would do such a thing. If I’d had that money now, bloody hell! Well the last time I spent money on something was the dog. He cost exactly the same. At the same time, in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t a big dealer. I was just a little frogspawn in a fucking massive ocean!
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I got busted about a year after I started selling. I was on methadone before I went to prison. But I was taking gear on top of that because I couldn’t handle facing prison. I was absolutely crapping myself. You build up a picture of what it’s like, and you think the lesbians are gonna come after you in the open showers. As you do! I’ve never been a fighter and I had never been in trouble with the police. And I had gone and stuck myself in, ‘Oh aye, I sell it.’ I thought heaps of people had done it and then denied later. As long as I didn’t say anything about anybody else I thought it was okay. But the solicitor said, ‘It’s not quite as easy as that.’ I couldn’t believe it. Oh fuck, what had I done? I went to prison and they kept me on methadone. But the first two weeks I was withdrawing to get my tolerance down because I had been using heroin too. They forgot to cut me down for the first couple of months. Now, at the time, there weren’t regular dealers in there, you couldn’t get it every day. I’m not the type of person that could have taken it in at a visit. I’m not good at doing things like that. My face would go bright red. I might as well wear a sign saying ‘I’ve got drugs on me.’
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Stirling is the only women’s prison in Scotland. When you first go in, you’ve got the admission block. Everybody goes in there for about four weeks and get to know the running of the place. Everybody does their bit of cleaning. Then they give you a job eventually. There’s the main block, which we called ‘Little Bosnia’. If you’re gonna be into trouble or taking drugs all the time, then you do your sentence there. And then you’ve got the privileged block where you get a key to your own cell. You’re supposed to be locked up and they give you a key! There was a big grill gate that went across the corridor. So it was like dormitories; there were seven cells, two toilets and a bathroom. The grill gate came across at night. But you had access to six other people in the unit. You could stay up all night if you wanted. You get real forks and knives instead of plastic ones. So it’s more privileged but, if you get two positive drug tests or if you get into trouble or fighting, you get chucked out. I got in there after seven weeks and I never left, served my whole sentence there. And I got a job in the hairdresser’s, the only place I wanted to go. If you’re there long enough, you can qualify as a hairdresser. The prison officer that runs the work party is a qualified hairdresser and she’s also qualified to assess the modules. She would send people on to college. Eventually you can get a certificate. Obviously it depends on how long a time you’re serving. I was there for a year. I cut myself off the methadone, because I wanted to learn and just work in the hairdresser’s all the time. I’ve now got a module that says I can wash somebody else’s hair! Hehe! There were a couple of lifers who qualified the whole thing. I remember first time I was gonna cut somebody’s hair I was hoping I didn’t get a lifer, ‘cause she would turn around and stab me if I didn’t do it right! I was able to do trims and stuff, just wasn’t there long enough to qualify for cutting. Old women from the area would come in and get their hair done. Oh yeah! They would come in on Wednesday morning and get their rollers done. It was brilliant. What a laugh we used to get. They were really sweet and they used to take in snacks for us. And it put a little bit of reality into the prison. Very different from being a drug dealer. Although sad to say, it was the first time since school, I can honestly say I was happy. Drug free for the first time since I was 17. It was wonderful.
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After I came out I stayed clean for nine months, until I got back with my boyfriend. It was stupid getting a habit again because I loved being clean. There was nothing better than waking up in the morning, not having to take something to make me normal. Not a pill, not a little bit of brown powder. And I was sleeping properly. In prison it’s easy enough to stay clean because you know you can’t get it anyway. But out here, as soon as you’ve got money and you feel bad, you will go and get it. You have to be taken away from your environment. Almost ten years I’ve done pretty much the same thing: sold drugs to feed my habit. I do what I’m used to. I would prefer to have a life clean, yes. But there are no services here. You’ve got a choice of a methadone script. I’ve been on and off for twelve years and I’m still fucking addicted. And that’s why rehab would be the way for me. But, unless you can afford to pay it privately, you have to wait for years. For fuck sake, I’ve been telling the DPS (Drug Problem Service) for two years that I want to go to rehab. And I’m not even on the bloody waiting list yet. Two and a half years to wait to get to the DPS just to tell them that I want into rehab. Now, they wait till you’re on 30 ml of methadone just to put you on a waiting list. Then you wait another three years. Get to fuck! You’re better off committing a fucking crime and go to jail.
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I don’t have the same kind of money anymore. I was doing well in the beginning because I was on my own. And I could limit myself to take what I needed. Today I’m with a partner and we need twice as much. And the drugs are selling cheaper and I put out slightly more than others do. I look at it, and it looks awful small, so I put out what I would accept for a tenner myself, so I lose out really. But people are more likely to come back when they are getting better sizes, as long as the quality of the stuff is okay. My customers are feeding my habit and, if they don’t come to me I will be strung out.
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I’m going to jail again. But I’m looking at it this way; there’s no point in crying because it will happen whether I like it or not. So I may as well face it. I know what to expect and I know certain people in there that I like and who aren’t full of shit. It’s a long time ago, but there are lifers who are still there. There are also people who go back and forth a lot. Especially drug dealers! They get a sentence, they go in, they come out and they get a habit again and go back to what they know. Like me! But I’m going away long enough to get out of the routine. I’ll get back into the hairdressing, hopefully, and do more of my modules. I’m quite confident. I know I will be coming off the drugs in there. And I don’t want to start again when I come out. I read some statistics saying that it only takes a month or two for a drug addict to get addicted again when they get out of prison. I went nine months last time, so I’d like to think that I’m not – in brackets – your average junkie. I can get by in life without, as long as I can keep control. Last time I got a habit, like a fucking idiot. Hopefully, this time…
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I don’t have children. I’ve never been hugely maternal and I’ve always wondered why people get pregnant when they are on fucking drugs. That’s not fair on the kids; they don’t have a chance if they’re brought up in an environment like that. At the same time I’ve never thought that I would never have kids. And, if I live to be sixty or seventy, I can’t see myself saying that I’m not a grandma! Maybe that’s selfish. But everybody that age should be a granny, know what I mean? Who’s going to look after me when I’m seventy? Who’s going to put me in a care home? Haha! That’s why I’m saying that I don’t want to come back to this lifestyle. I’m getting older. You do start thinking about it and your biological clock is starting to tick. Slowly maybe…
Recorded 25th April