I sometimes think about the time when I first started using drugs. I don't fully understand the transit that accured during that time. One of the reasons had to be that lots of other people were using drugs too. Some of my close friends had been dabbling with hard drugs for a while, even whilst at school. I knew fourteen-year-olds that were injecting Heroin and other things. Lots of kids and other people used other drugs. Cannabis was being freely used everywhere, it seemed. It was late '79-'80, and by '81 I was really aware of people's drug-use. Punk hit the streets. People were living in squatts and Wohngemeinschafften-Communes. Even though there was a big depression in England, I don't think it was as bad in Switzerland.
A drug-scene was slowly growing in Zurich; but as I remember there was already a heroin- scene by the lake in Zurich which was called ' The Rivierra', or even before that there was the scene at the ' Hirschenplatz' in the Niederdorf, or the old-town part of Zurich.
One of my earliest Girfriends, which I shall not name, was already using Heroin at the Rivierra. I hated it and had no control over her drug-use( but what was I doin' goin' out with someone who injected Heroin?). Around that time I was clean, young and full of a ' Stay Free' Punk , and I hated: drugs, alcohol, tabbacco and that sort of shit; all that shit just cuts the population to shreds...
I never thought that I'd be injecting Heroin in the near future, nor did I forsee that I'd have a drug-problem for 25 years....That was a coming nightmare.
Like soldiers we fought a hard battle and many, many died and left behind tears of sadness. It was a war that wasn't understood by those that were in it. How could they know? The hunt and reward was an endless task; a daily routeen. Sometimes others looked on us like we were carkasses, or the dead-sombiefied- mutants...The dominant walked and took from us all we had: our money, our homes, our belongings, our respect, our hearts and souls....And our lifes.
