I’m sure many old codgers, like myself, are thoroughly fed up with the current public debate regarding assisted dying.
Dr Allinson seems to have an obsession with it.
For us old people, shuffling about, creaking and groaning, trying to keep one step ahead of the grim reaper, it’s very depressing hearing about it, on the radio or reading about it in the local press.
Dr Allinson, what we oldies need is some assisted living.
How about legalising the social drugs for the over 70s?
I’m sure the research chemists could process opium into capsule form, to help us through the day and keep our minds off the imminent horrors.
Opium didn’t do any harm to the great poets, quite the contrary.
Coleridge, Southey, De Quincey, Wordsworth, all wrote their finest work under its influence.
Dorothy Wordsworth, creator of that wonderful journal, was never without her bottle of laudanum.
So, Dr Allinson and your medical and politician colleagues, wake up and smell the embrocation.
Or to paraphrase Delia Smith: ‘Let’s be avin yer.’
Patrick O’Garrity
Douglas
This letter was first published in the Manx Independent of May 18.
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