To consider moving because kids found woman passed out on crack?

[DrugsWorry]

In the park earlier this week, my DS and some friends (all 7/8) found a man who was passed out on crack (he had a crack pipe, so it was crack).

We phoned an ambulance, dealt with it, told the kids a fib, but I am deeply freaked out by it and am even willing to consider moving house. Drug dealing is becoming more open and prevalent in our neighbourhood in London and I am increasingly feeling that I don’t want my kids growing up around it.

I’ve lived in London all my life and have never seen anything like this.

YABU = this is part of urban living, suck it up.
YANBU = get out of there.

Of course you can move but you might get better advice if you give area and where you want to move to

London is a big place and some areas are great for dc

I made plans to move out of London as soon as I got a positive (unplanned) pregnancy test! I had moved there from a small seaside town and loved living there. Didn’t matter so much until then that we had prostitutes on the doorstep, loads of used syringes dropped in the park and drugged up or drunk people in the street. That was 25 years ago and it’s much worse now.

I live an hour outside now in a green and pleasant land. Used too commute for work. Never see that shit here and don’t miss it at all.

@OperaStation if you read the full tread you'd see id mentioned all the areas of london I've lived in. I'm born and raised here for at least 4 generations (incl DD) and I've never seen someone passed out from a crackpipe- booze yes, fighting yes and just all round homelessness yes but never from crack.

In fact the only time I ever saw people passed out from drugs (spice as I remember the media calling it) is living in Manchester City Center and visiting Liverpool.

Based on MY experience I don't believe OP.

I would give yourself some time. I love my area, but when a terrorist attack happened 5 minutes from my house, I genuinely contemplated moving. It was a fearful reaction. Am glad I didn’t as it is not a common incident and is hopefully unlikely to happen again. If this kind of thing happens all the time, then yes, I would probably move, in my case to a different area of London as I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

I grew up in east London (lived there about 40 years), not a nice bit, and never saw anything like this. But then my brother got into drugs, badly. It nearly tore our family apart. Long story short we moved , as did DM. It doesn't matter whether you are it or not, it's there if you want to find it and it's very close by.

I suspect when people say ‘drugs are everywhere’, they mean things like weed and those crappy little laughing gas canisters that litter the street. I’m also prepared to believe ‘everyone’ is doing cocaine too, although as a non-user it flies under my radar.

I certainly see, and, yes, smell, evidence of the above in my town. I lived next door to a petty weed dealer for a while (and am still ribbed by friends and colleagues making out that I’m living in some sort of drug dealing hot spot so they obviously see less than I do!). What I don’t see here are needles, crack pipes, police raids or the like. I wouldn’t even recognise the smell of crack. Have seen people smoking crack, dealing and under the influence of various things in our nearest city centre, but it’s pretty much confined to an area that’s notorious for it.

So no, everywhere is not the same. It certainly isn’t the case that if you move you’ll end up next to a cannabis farm or a crack dealer as some posters have suggested! If it really got to the stage that sort of thing was inevitable I’d be moving out of the UK as a whole.

This kind of thing happens all the time where we live in London. Not people my kids would have a conversation with, but it's an inner city area with lots of 'normal' people living here. I wouldn't consider moving due to this one person.

I'm in the exactly same situation (possibly live in the same town as you) and it certainly does happen up here. I've worked in Newcastle city centre most of my adult life and have seen plenty of people passed out from drugs. I've had to put them in the recovery position and wait until the ambulance arrived on a number of occasions.
Re the small mining town. Fair enough I've not come across people unconscious from drugs, I've seen people clearly off their face stumbling through the well known flower park and the town square. Police nowhere to be seen as per.

War on Drugs going as well as ever then

So was it a man or a woman?

When my children were little I always remember being dismayed at how grim some of the local playgrounds we took them to were. One in Exeter I remember covered in litter and alcohol bottles, one in Chelmsford where we had to pick up loads of broken glass. But the three large playgrounds within easy walking distance of our house in London were largely immaculate. My young adults are really pleased that they had a London childhood and seem to be doing just fine (touch wood).

It's everything that comes with drugs that riles me - county lines, weekly stabbings yet the police get blasted for stop and search, Gov acts as if is non existent. No proper customs at ports. Everyone just shrugs - not their problem - SS on its knees. Grrrrrrr

Isn't it sad that the only options are moving away, or even moving out of the country as pp suggested.

What little say and influence + prevention and protection we have from drug use spreading so fast and being normalised.
And the U.K. is in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

I said YANBU as that would freak me out too.
but a knee-jerk reaction to move isn’t the right one realistically, but I totally get why you’re feeling like that.

The U.K. is one of the*

(Not IN one of the)

You raise an interesting point re wealth of a country. I’ve lived in U.K., Aus and US - all wealthy nations, and drug use has been an issue. Last time I went back to Aus I noticed an increase in my city, something called ice apparently. A nice city overall but not without many drug users

On the flip side the poor countries that supply it fair badly if not worse

It’s hard to stop something that is so wrecking

I think it’s right to be wary when considering drugs and dc but it’s not automatically drugs and city over town. There are some towns that have issues, maybe increased boredom and inactivity

That's an unusual reason for disbelieving it. There are plenty of situations that other people have witnessed that I haven't but it doesn't mean to say that they never occurred.

Whilst drug use is prevalent everywhere, there are areas where it is much more discrete. I wouldn't like a kids park being used for drug dealing and drug use near me and would move if it happened.

Where I live there's the odd bit of weed and 2 known heroin users- they both have MH issues and are well known in the area in a protective way but they don't openly use on the streets or parks and my kids have no idea about it.

Said it was a heroin overdose?

@Newuser82
Same here!
I live in the Midlands in an ex mining town so not exactly posh, but I’ve never experienced this either.
Ive been on MN a few years and realised London really is a different place.

We don't even have kids and ended up moving from our inner city terraced house because of multiple incidents like this.
I regularly saw drug dealing, and the neighbourhood was grotty - dog poo (and sometimes human!), drunks passed out in the park surrounded by sick, fly tipping, litter. Then the grand finale - our next-door-but-one-neighbour, a crack-addicted prostitute, was kicked out into the street -naked - by her pimp. I looked out of the window (someone was already helping her at this point), turned to DH and calmly said "you know we're moving house now, don't you?" and he just went "Yep".
We now live in a market town and honestly it's a dream. Yes there is a tiny bit of crime here and there, but it's miniscule in comparison. Everyone takes a pride in their homes and surroundings here and that's uplifting to be around.

Tbh I wouldn’t go by mn alone or these threads

In the park we use often you are more likely to see dc excited about the ice cream van, playing on slides, runners and hiring bikes than a passed out drug user

People will respond with similar stories but London has loads of happy families, who also take care of their communities etc

Based on MY experience I don't believe OP.

I've never been raped or experienced racism but I know it happens...

I’ve lived in London all my life and have never seen anything like this.

Firstly: How?!

To be honest, I think you'd be daft to move based on just this. In any case, I imagine you'd have similar things happening in most big cities in this country. That's been the case pretty much everywhere I've lived.

Admittedly, the area I grew up and sort of work I do (not a drug dealer, should be noted) might make me slightly inured to this, but I wouldn't consider moving based on this.

Well, lucky you. Westminster is absolutely full of homeless people who are regularly passed on out on the streets during the day.

Based on my experience I completely believe OP. Why would she make it up?

Drugs are everywhere, I live in a smallish village and cocaine around here is absolutely rife. Thankfully I've not experienced what you and your poor son has and if I did I'd want to move too.