This Is Your [Former] Police Minister On Drugs

Earlier this week, somebody asked Judith Collins what she thought of Gareth Morgan. Ever the diplomat, her curt response was that if she wound up having to deal with him … she’d “probably take up drugs”. No word, as yet, on whether she’d also find this necessary working with Winston.

But this got me thinking. What on earth WOULD our errant former Police Minister be like, as it were, on drugs? Some might say that the stiff-upper-foreheaded [eyebrow permanently, quizzically raised in an implicit expression of barely-contained lower-middle-class rage] terror of boy-racers and certain members of the Press Gallery alike would make for an exceedingly unlikely partaker of recreational pharmacology.

Perhaps.

But in an age wherein David Cameron’s previous drug-use turns out to be some of the *least* surprising of his antics, is it really so inconceivable?

More to the point, thinking about it, if Judith Collins WERE to suddenly take up that exceedingly broad ontological category “drugs” … would anybody actually notice?

Consider the evidence.

Ecstasy, as we all know, is frequently prone to producing spontaneous smiles [even in the dowdiest of faces], and eruptions of an overwhelming compulsion to dance. To Move. To exercise this huge feeling that you’re the center of the room and attention. And even, perhaps, to bring on a rare state of psychosis in which you start seeing things.

Does this sound like an adequate description of a beaming senior political figure rushing the stage at a concert for the purpose of dancing with reckless abandon before a captive audience, and even sighting Elvis?

Meth, meanwhile, can induce some rather potent feelings of dominance. Of power. A certain level of mania which can vastly inflate one’s self-perceptions of strength, physical prowess or ability to exert control over others, Indeed, it can even lead to one feeling literally bulletproof; albeit often at the cost of any shred of empathy.

Now, I’m not necessarily saying that an overweaning obsession with crushing cars [presumably not with one’s bare hands – but you never know with Collins] is the result of a clandestine pattern of crystal use. But it’s pretty undeniable that a fairly broad swathe of Collins’ political career has been indubitably characterized by an (eventually) unfounded self-perception of dang near invulnerability (as demonstrated, for instance, by her conduct during the Oravida Affair – which we’ll touch on shortly); and the apparent air of feeling up to cleaning up the nation’s streets singlehandedly.

Although speaking of stimulants, there’s a certain sort of person who’s commonly reputed as attempting to exercise undue influence upon border-control officials in order to get their seriously valuable white powder into a potentially lucrative market.

These people are known as cocaine smugglers.

Or, with a sliiiiiiightly different substance [and a very different set of consequences … featuring, ironically, coming into contact with Police *less* thanks to losing the relevant portfolio], Judith Collins circa late 2013 doing exactly that in order to help out the Oravida company with its milk-powder exports.

Collins’ subsequent presentations on this front went some ways towards evincing many of the other characteristic effects of long-term drug abuse – such as memory impairment, pronounced vindictiveness/venomosity of personal interaction, and seriously negative impacts upon one’s career. But I digress.

One of the overwhelming impressions I came away with from watching how Collins handled the fiery tailspin of the Oravida scandal was just how much overt resemblance it bore to dealing with a harder-core opiate or heroin addict. Now, many of us have thankfully been spared the *particular* displeasures of such an experience, but in my past life as a rather more colourful individual I had the regrettable fortune to come into contact with a number of such individuals. Their behavior, succinctly summated, tended towards the hugely overtly self-entitled, seeming to think that the world at large owed them a living; always adamantly convinced that nothing was ever their fault; whiny, wheedly, and needling; and very much not above utilizing all manner of threats and cajolery of a decidedly underhanded nature [whether emotional or literal blackmail, or even more duplicitous techniques of either persuasion or vengeance].

A cursory examination of the timeline of Collins’ conduct certainly seems rather overtly coterminous with much of the above. Particularly the whole ‘threaten the Press Gallery with illicit disclosure of “all sorts of things”‘ episode. Everything was always somebody else’s fault [whether Opposition politicians for uncovering her actions, and later bringing matters to a head; or Press Gallery folks for reporting on the goings-on of the day]; ‘memory’ was a mutable field to be manipulated rather than acknowledged; and so on and so forth.

So after all of this, I respectfully submit that it’s not actually all that hard to imagine Your [Former] Police Minister On Drugs.

After all, simply looking at the way she’s behaved for much of her time in office is pretty much the next best thing. And, as we can see from the above, incorporates the typologies of behavior for a pretty broad array of the pharmacological spectrum.

No mushrooms, though. For that, you’ll just have to get a rough idea from this clip of a somewhat similar personality…

Also, no cannabis. Which is perhaps a shame – as if anybody could potentially use a little more “chill” in the present Government, it’d probably be Collins. Or possibly Alfred Ngaro – although in his case, he seems to be far enough away from reality /as-is/ without requiring any *further* impairment.

DISCLAIMER: I’m in no way actually endorsing anybody taking drugs. Whilst I would have thought that presenting them in the same context as the words “Judith Collins” and “Uses” would have enough provided admirable disincentive for anyone, ever, to wish to take up a recreational drug habit … this is perhaps somewhat wishful thinking on my part. So just uh … be careful out there – and avoid substance abuse lest you wind up with the crippling imperilment of personal circumstances represented by breaking out in handcuffs. 

FURTHER DISCLAIMER: I’m not actually stating Judith Collins *is* on drugs. Instead, I’m simply observing that there appears to be quite an ongoing pattern of her previous political conduct which appears to accord rather strongly with the sort of pernicious parsimony of perspective, empathy, or principle which one would feasibly expect from a habitual hard-drug [problematic] user.