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.

Exactly, given that crack is a massive stimulant I have trouble believing that someone was passed out from it!!

Oh off you trot! I call BS, honestly!! 🥱

OP I totally recognise this. I live in north London, the less well to do part of Haringey. I've not seen exactly what you describe but I could easily imagine it happening. See regular deals, last week a couple smoking crack on the pavement with a coat over their head, huddles of incredibly unwell looking addicts on corners waiting for their man etc.

I don't know what the answer is. A lot of what we've now got is the result of more police attention being focused elsewhere, and so the addicts and dealers move on - in our case to my area. But all we can really do is try and get attention focused on where we are in the hope it becomes someone else's problem. Hopeless really.

It's the one thing that would make me move as I otherwise love where we are but it's not the right time for a move so I'm just hoping it gets better and doing what I can to make that happen.

Kindly FO @steppon . Don't parallel race with OP post. On threads where race and racism are actually relevant five minutes won't past before football Twitter and clutching my pearls monarchists descend on the post talking about how tolerant GB supposedly is and Mumsnet rather than shutting these idiots down just delete the thread.

In this instance OP is just baiting and being backed up by (for the most part) people who don't live in london. OP won't even say which area of london this supposed incident took place in and instead has kept it vague enough that those who don't live in london can freely say we've moved to the countryside , the coast, the sticks ( translation : to areas where there are none I'd any global majority populations) so they don't experience this ie the issue is with "them" not us.

@MarshaBradyo I completely agree and this is all I was trying to say in my initial post. Lots of happy families in london doing normal family activities without children stumbling upon passed out crackheads.

@WobblyLondoner I'm sure you can imagine it. OP likely did as well.

You lived in Camden and never saw any drugs or addicts? 🤔

Houses are expensive. They are also interspersed with council properties, refuges, and sheltered accommodation.

Confused that after living in all these areas of London you don't know this?

With kids I would move. I would not want my kids to be searched on their way to school as teenagers or meeting crazy customers on their way home. On my own or with hubby only I would be fine.

Oh no

I wouldn't move for one occurrence, but if this was regular yes I would

It's not everywhere. There is a drug trade in my small town, but you don't see people off their heads or passed out in public. I've never encountered that and I've lived here years.

I'd move to a different neighbourhood if this was the kind of thing I was having to live around.

Agree with PP- I’ve lived in London all my life and never seen anyone “passed out” on crack.

Certainly there are drugs around, same as everywhere. But so much about OP’s post doesn’t add up (A woman or a man? Passing out on crack?) that it’s almost certainly complete balls.

If you're going to quote someone back at them do get it right please - I said I recognise this not that I imagine it.

I like where I live and I love London. I can't imagine living anywhere else. But, like everywhere, areas have problems. All sorts of problems, some of which affect everyone in that area. Who are you to say we can't talk about it?

@georgarina I never said I haven't seen drug use. I said I haven't seen someone visibly passed out from crack BIG difference.

When I see someone asleep on the floor I don't start rifling through their property to see if its drugs and if yes which type. I've simply been challenging that op went into a park and saw a crack pipe in the hands of a man who was passed out. People who are doing drugs in public places hide it so they don't get moved on. You will see people passed out but you won't see paraphernalia to the extent that in OPs instance you have to lie to kids

If you insist on quoting at least read my posts in full before responding.

Haven't RTFT but this is one of the reasons we moved out of London.

Razor blade and traces of cocaine found at the top of the slide in the playpark one morning.

People regularly comatose on the ground on Camberwell Green.

An E pill on the pavement as I was walking to Morrisons.

The smell of weed in the air all year round and people openly smoking it on the street.

Two guys off their tits having a violent fight on the bus in the middle of the day.

I used to be a recreational drug user and am pretty relaxed about it but once I had kids, predictably, my priorities changed.

We moved to a much smaller city on the south coast and haven't had even a glimmer of any kind of drugs or druggy behaviour in two years.

I mean, isn't that London being London? I remember when I was in my 20s stepping out of my apartment and an old homeless man had started sleeping there in the hallway and was actually there for about 2 weeks, not a lot I could do about it! We couldn't invite him in as he was only there over night v late til mornings and he always smelt a LOT of drink.

Anyway I feel like all big cities have some of that so it's more a decision of whether big city living Is really for you...

I've never seen anything like that in London, sorry. And London is big, you could change neighbourhood?

Consider moving. There is no where drug free, but some areas are safer and nicer. Think to when your children are 13 and their mates start using if it's the done thing.

The high lasts around 10 mins max then you get a horrific crash. That's why it's so addictive.

Passing out, crashed out, slumped in a doorway, etc, is a common sight with crackheads. That's why they get do desperate for more. If you just got stimulated then it wore off and you thought 'oo lovely, now on with my day' then we wouldn't have a crack addiction problem.

Drugs are becoming more and more of a problem, there needs to be a major crackdown, not just on dealing but possession too.

I worked with someone in a professional role in a professional company who did crack in the work toilets. Explains why they smelt so bad!

the toilets I meant!

I'm not surprised this has freaked you out! YANBU.

Because they don't give a flying fuck about others. All that matters is their fix.

I stayed at my son’s flat in east London to look after his dog for a week. There are two parks, a small one opposite, and a large one at the back. The dogs rolled in human shit on one, and there were people taking drugs in the woods behind. The smell of weed was everywhere. I couldn’t wait to get back to the north. There are drugs in our small town, but it’s not in your face, and nobody shits in the park!

Oh, and the rubbish! Dodging cooked chicken bones with the dogs. There were bins everywhere, but no fucker used them!!

I live in a rural town (grew up in London though) and the drugs problem is a lot worse here than in London. It's all done so openly here, partly due to the fact the nearest police station is 20 miles away!
The skatepark absolutely stinks of weed and most people just don't see the harm in the kids hanging around there smoking weed.
I find that the attitude to drugs is so different, and I think it's down to a lot of very rich people doing them recreationally, and just not giving a shit.

I think there is a huge problem with drug taking in rural areas, not necessarily in every village, but certainly in small seaside towns.

County lines is where drug dealers come from cities to invade new and profitable areas, so for example, they run down into Devon and Cornwall, and use vulnerable people such as people with learning disabilities or school-children to move the product; they also bring with them violence as well as the problems inherent in addiction themselves.

My mum lives in a nice town in a nice road but at the top of that road is a block of flats where lots of people are housed who are having difficulties with life; one person has been found dead there, and people who have been drinking and using drugs wander up the road, sometimes with children which is very sad to see (and they are well-known to services and the police are always up there). This is less the case than in the past when people were just left with their parents, and I hope the children are moved out of those environments although going into care is not ideal either.

You might move to a nice seaside town and find a county lines operation all around you or a half-way house opened up. We live in a small city and don't see anything too terrible, but city parks are well-known dealing places because they are full of trees and bushes to hide in! We also see the odd quiet deal. It does not affect our daily lives and we feel safe where we live. There is nowhere rural where some of the young people are not using at least cannabis.

I’ve lived in U.K., Aus and US - all wealthy nations, and drug use has been an issue

This isn’t an issue in Singapore …