how to recognise a coke head

Whether snorted, eaten, injected or smoked, cocaine is potentially deadly and no one can predict a fatal dose. Here are some perils of long-term, unresolved cocaine addiction and even short-term abuse in some cases.

• Necrosis in nasal tissue. Snorted cocaine causes constriction of blood vessels; too much constriction means that tissue is being deprived of oxygen, which can lead to cell death.
• Seizure.
• Arrhythmia, heart attack and stroke. Cocaine puts an enormous burden on your cardiovascular system, dramatically elevating a user’s heart rate. Even recovered addicts face a likelihood of heart attack seven times higher than the average person. Risk of heart attack is substantially more elevated in the hours after taking a dose of cocaine.
• Respiratory failure.
• Kidney damage failure.
• Serious infection or contraction of HIV/AIDS from contaminated needles.
• Circulatory embolism from insoluble elements cutting the injected cocaine.

Cocaine is seen by many especially wannabe high flyers – as a hip, glamorous drug but true addicts are not burdened by those delusions, as they desperately focused on how to score their next fix.

Here are some ways to recognize cocaine addiction.

Constantly runny nose. Snorting cocaine can lead to rhinitis, a fancy term for the inflammation of the nasal membranes. Consequently, people who snort cocaine often have an uncontrollably runny nose. In addition to runniness, addicts often suffer nosebleeds or even a loss of their sense of smell.

Pronounced fluctuations in mood and energy levels. When high on cocaine, an addict experiences a rush characterized by hyperactive tendencies, euphoria (as mentioned above), fidgetiness and elevated heart rate. Cocaine highs produce these effects in varying length and amplitude, depending upon how the cocaine is ingested.

But cocaine abuse physically alters the brain’s ability to register pleasure by any other means than gradually escalating doses of the drug. Inevitably, the high gives way to an equally powerful low, characterized by irritability, lethargy and depression.

Sleeping problems. Cocaine addiction can lead to insomnia or oversleeping.

Paranoia and psychosis. Chronic abuse of cocaine can cause the user to become paranoid and anxiety-ridden or even spiral into hallucination and psychotic episodes.

Sexual clues. Cocaine users often report heightened libido, but cocaine abuse can also cause erectile dysfunction and impotence.

Grinding teeth. There’s even a term for compulsive tooth grinding – “bruxism.” This nervous tendency is a common consequence of smoking cocaine.

Short breath. Someone who smokes crack may suffer from shortness of breath due to lung damage from the smoke. No matter how it is ingested, cocaine raises your heart rate enough that, to keep enough oxygen pumping through the veins, a person often feels shortness of breath.

Hot and cold flashes. Cocaine abuse compromises our ability to regulate body temperature.

Weight loss. Cocaine acts as an appetite suppressant, to such an extent that some addicts ultimately suffer from malnutrition.

Needle tracks. A cocaine addict who injects the drug intravenously typically has a track of needle pricks visible on the forearm. Addicts often resort to wearing long-sleeved shirts even on ridiculously hot days in their efforts to hide the evidence of their cocaine addiction.

These observable characteristics do not necessarily indicate addiction to cocaine, but where several of the observations can be made, cocaine addiction is a distinct possibility. Successful treatment is an individualised process, but the first step is identifying the problem and encouraging the addict to find help.

Mr Monkey wonders if bloggers recognise any of the above signs, in thier local councillor perhaps?

local conservatives party at your expense

'councillor Milburn consoles his leader after news broke that councillor Gibson got away with more expenses than he did'

Over the last couple of days Mr Monkey has been having another look at the expenses claims of Laurel and Hardy, the comedy duo who represent the Cleadon and East Boldon Ward, councillors Potts and Milburn.

Armed only with a diary, a calculator and a list of council committee meetings, Mr Monkey has come to the conclusion that Laurel and Hardy have been having a very fine time at the behest of the public purse. Readers will remember that Mr Monkey revealed Dumb and Dumber’s excessive expense claims in a previous post CLICK HERE

The King of Sleaze David Potts accumulated £3116.81 whilst attending the Local Government Association’s “Environment Board”, travelling up and down to London (with the odd overnight stop) via first class rail travel. Over £800 was pocketed claimed largely without the production of any receipts.

Likewise, councillor Milburn the Cleadon Plonky managed to rack up £3129.85, this time via the Local Government Associations “Strategy and Finance Board”. Not to miss out on any free money, £300 was paid out with no proof that it had actually been spent.

Those of you who frequent this site on a regular basis will not be surprised by these figures – councillor Potts has always been top of the class when it comes to sponging a publicly funded jaunt to London, a free bed for the night and a slap up meal to boot. Clearly, he has also created Milburn in his own image, indeed they both love nothing more than a good feed at the pig’s trough at the public’s expense of course. 

Whilst their greed may be galling, it’s surpassed by their total disregard for the people who elected them. Over a period of 6 consecutive LGA Environment Board meetings, cpunillor Potts never missed one of them. When it comes to 6 Community Area Forum meetings (the life blood of the councillor/electorate structure) all held within a couple of days of Potts’ trips to London, he managed to attend a grand total of ……0, zero, nil, zilch, none.

Councillor Milburn’s record is equally contemptible. 4 of his LGA Strategy and Finance Board meetings fell on the same day as his local CAF’s – Milburn chose to go to London on all four occasions, spending £1381 instead of representing those who elected him. Over the Council committee period 2008/2009, the 3 stooges – Conservative councillors for Cleadon and East Boldon (lets not forget the Donald Wood) – never managed to attend a CAF meeting as a trio. Pudgy Face Potts didn’t even manage to get his rather ample backside to one meeting, such is his laziness and contempt for the electorate.

So there you have it. When it comes to representing their communities, councillors David Potts and Jeffrey Milburn could not care less and would rather have a free couple of days in London, all paid for from the public purse.

Mr Monkey has this message for all you doubters out there … when you’re sitting in The Cottage or The Red Lion listening to the whines emanating from the mouths of Potts and Milburn as to how their reputations have been besmirched by The Monkey, remind them that all this information has been gleaned from the Councils own internet site. It’s free to use and free to see – the devil is in the detail, however, the devil is never in The Gazette!

South Shields Daily Pictures

Today’s South Shields Daily Picture Monkey Clip is dedicated to two of South Tyneside’s most self opinionated fuckwits – the King of Sleaze, aka conservative councillor David Potts and The Fat Mackem Hobbit, aka Graham Rigg.

It seems that these two have much more in common than Mr Monkey thought and this short clip shows what happens when the King of Sleaze demands total obedience from his subjects lackey.

 

But what does councillor Potts do when the council leader, Iain Malcolm summons him to his office?

is the member for jarrow a peckish plonky?

'The memebr for Jarrow thinks the taxpayer should pay for his grocery bill'

It seems Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn loves nothing more than a free feed and piss up at the taxpayers expense – maybe it’s a legacy from his days of being a South Tyneside councillor.

According to the Parliamentary expenses published yesterday, Mr Hepburn thinks that the taxpayer should pick up his grocery bill and he sees nothing wrong in claiming around £75 per week for food – last year the greedy bastard managed to fuck the taxpayer to the tune of £3,850 for his food bill alone.

His expenses also show that he claimed £450 for a washing machine and nearly £500 for a digital camera – which by coincidence happened to be bought a couple of weeks before Christmas – Mr Monkey reckons somebody probably got a canny Christmas present.

Mr Monkey also reckons that the taxpayer has been paying for his drinking habit under the guise of petty cash. Examination of Mr Hepburn’s claims reveal that he claimed £250 a month for ‘petty cash’. This is the monthly limit allowed and there’s no requirement to submit receipts.

This chimp can’t help wondering how he managed to claim exactly £250 month after month unless of course he was milking the system to feed his boozing habit – he can often be found on a Sunday afternoon pissed up in the Clock in Hebburn.

Maybe he should take a leaf out of David Miliband’s book and pay some of the money back?

miliband and hepburn caught with their snouts in the trough

The Pig Sty House of Commons has finally published details of MPs’ expenses claims – more than a year after the High Court ordered their publication and weeks after they were leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

Revelations about their claims have forced some MPs to announce their resignations and yesterday junior Treasury minister, Kitty Ussher became the latest MP to quit the Government following allegations that she avoided paying capital gains tax by “flipping” her second home.

The list of MPs expenses includes printed documents and receipts relating to claims made between 2004/05 and 2007/08 for a series of parliamentary allowances, but it seems they are still a bit coy about telling the public the whole truth – many details have been blanked out or have been left out altogether.

These include claims under the £24,000-a-year Additional Costs Allowance, which reimburses MPs for the cost of having to maintain a second home while serving at Westminster; the £22,000 Incidental Expenses Provision, which pays for running an office; and the £10,400 Communications Allowance, which covers the cost of newsletters and websites to inform constituents about their activities; as well as details of expenditure on stationery and postage.

Many of the expense claims and supporting receipts feature large blacked out areas where it’s not always clear what has been obscured or why.

The list does not include the addresses of MPs’ homes, which means it’s virtually impossible to identify so-called flipping – where MPs switch the designation of their second properties to maximise their claims and avoid paying capital gains tax.

Also blanked out are the details of people and companies to whom payments were made using expenses and correspondence between MPs and the Commons Fees Office have also been removed.

But despite this cover up it seems our local MPs have well and truly had their snouts in the trough, CLICK HERE for details of Jarrow MP, Stephen Hepburn’s expenses and HERE for details South Shields MP, David Miliband’s claims.

is the labour council leader impersonating independent councillor steve harrison?

Last week Mr Monkey revealed that council leader Iain Malcolm led a delegation of South Tyneside councillors on a 5 day jolly to Epinay in France. CLICK HERE. The delegation included a number of Malcolm lackeys including councillors Rob Dix and Steve Harrison.

Mr Monkey’s revelations sentthese freeloaders into panic mode and councillor Iain Malcolm – in an attempt to justify spending thousands of pounds of public money – posted two comments on Mr Monkey’s Blog under the name J Adamson. CLICK HERE and HERE. from this e-mail address; eurocar@hotmail.com  

This comment was then left on Mr Monkey’s Blog under the same name and using the same e-mail address within hours of Mr Monkey’s second post –

You deluded idiot, I AM NOT Iain Malcolm and I AM NOT a councillor just an employee of STC, now you’ve disclosed my email address and risked my job you stupid ignorant fucking twat!
Pull your head out of your arse and start thinking of a way to defend me at the investigatory interview.

I won’t be back leaving comments here, brainless arsehole.

The tone and style of this comment was different to the other two and it was clearly written by a someone else.

This chimp has spent most of the weekend looking at all the comments left on his site and can confirm that two e-mail addresses – eurocar@hotmail.com and eurocar@hotmail.co.uk– have been regularly used to post comments, under different names since November 2008.

According to Jarra Lad, eurocar is part of Elmfiled taxis and is owned by councillor Steve Harrison. If this is true and councillor Harrison is behind these comments Mr Monkey reckons that the council leader will not be best pleased when he learns what councillor Harrison really thinks of him.

The only question is that did councillor Harrison know that Iain Malcolm was posting comments in his name? If not what was the council leader doing impersonating an councillor Harrison – Mr Monkey wonders whether it’s got anything to do with stopping former council leader Paul Waggott from making a swift return to the council?

A list of all comments left using the eurocar e-mail address will follow in the next 48 hours.

whose council leader iain malcolm impersonating?

Council leader Iain Malcolm now seems to be distancing himself from the comments he made on Mr Monkey’s Blog after the council’s week long visit to Epinay in France was exposed on this blog. CLICK HERE.

Mr Monkey also revealed that councillor Malcolm used a pseudonym in order to hide his real identity or to deliberately discredit the person whose identity he had stolen. Both comments were posted under the name J Adamson and were from this e-mail address eurocar@hotmail.com

Now Mr Monkey reckons there is a 3rd possibility – councillor Iain Malcolm wrote the comments on someone else’s behalf who then posted them on this site using his or her own identity. Whatever the circumstances this chimp is 100% certain that the comments were written by Iain Malcolm. CLICK HERE and HERE. and that this is’nt the first time Miss Piggy has posted comments on Mr Monkey’s Blog using other peoples names – more of this later. 

It seems Mr Monkey’s decision to reveal council leader Iain Malcolm was behind these comments and the decision to tell bloggers about his rouse of using eurocar@hotmail.com as his e-mail address caused panic in the South Tyneside Scroungers Club councillors delegation in Epinay and sent them scurrying for cover back under the stones they crawled out from.

Councillor Malcolm then came up with another rouse, this time he tried to bloggers that J Adamson was a council employee who now risked losing his or her job because of Mr Monkey’s revelations. Unfortunatley he couldn’t order his stooge, Papa John Szymanski at the Labour Gazetteer, aka Shields Gazette to publish the story – he can’t risk telling the public what we really gets up to at their expenses – so he decided to use the Fat Mackem Hobbit over at the Shire as his mouthpiece and the daft twat fell for it.

Within hours of Mr Monkey confirming that Iain Malcolm was the person responsible, the following comment appeared;

You deluded idiot, I AM NOT Iain Malcolm and I AM NOT a councillor just an employee of STC, now you’ve disclosed my email address and risked my job you stupid ignorant fucking twat!
Pull your head out of your arse and start thinking of a way to defend me at the investigatory interview.

I won’t be back leaving comments here, brainless arsehole.

.. and this is when the theory that J Adamson is a council employee falls on flat on it’s arse.

Although this latest comment comes from the same e-mail address and uses the same name, Mr Monkey is certain that Iain Malcolm did not write it – it’s not his style of writing,  which thanks to a tip off Mr Monkey now knows how to recognise.

This comment is clearly the work of a second individual on the French trip and Mr Monkey reckons he ‘s seen this style of writing on dozens of occasions since his blog first appeared.

Mr Monkey is going to spend the weekend going through all the archived comments to see if any pattern emerges and he’s also going to do some digging into who or what eurocar is and what link there is with South Tyneside Council – his findings will be posted next week.

In the meantime Mr Monkey can reveal that the eurocar e-mail address was first used by someone called Big Daddy on 1st November 2008 when he (the tone of this comment tells you he’s a man) left this comment

Get out ya dirty bastard we want to see some chicks, lasses with big tits in nurses uniforms.
No Bender Boys like Malcolm does. 

councillor harrison takes the lead in the french connection

"which way to the free beer tent"

It didn’t take long for Indy councillor Steve Harrison to live up to his reputation of being a freeloader now that his shackles have been removed.

Councillor Harrsion left the Indy Alliance in May to become a ‘stand alone independent’ but within days he joined a new group called the association of misfits non aligned independents and progressives.

It now seems that his price for leaving the Indy Alliance was not the promise of a paid position but the chance to go on a few freebies at the taxpayers expense.

Since being elected by the people of Fellgate and Hedworth to oppose the Labour party he has regularly jumped into bed with them in exchange for a chance to live it up at the public’s expense – councillor Harrison’s loves nothing better than a freebie especially if it means he can get pissed without putting his hand in his pocket.

Mr Monkey has now learned that as well as his taxpayer funded trips to Belfast, London and Bournmouth councillor Harrison has gone continental. On Monday he joined a large delegation of scroungers on a week long trip to Epinay-ser-Seine on the outskirts of Paris, France – funded by the taxpayer.

It seems that even the publicity loving leader of the council thinks the trip might be a sensitive issue at a time when MP’s expenses have angered so many people. This might explain the absence of any coverage in the Labour party fanzine, aka the Shields Gazette and of course there’s the small matter of rubbing his Jarrow and Hebburn colleagues noses in it – no wonder he’s told those around him not to say anything about the trip.

Mr Monkey can’t wait to see how councillor Harrison is going to explain this one to the people that elected him to oppose a regime renowned for it’s abuse of public money. Whilst he’s at it he might want to explain why he’s missed so many council meetings due to business commitments yet he can drop everything at a moments notice to spend a week on the piss, paid for by the people of South Tyneside.

monkey clip

This week’s Monkey Clip is dedicated to the greediest bastard on South Tyneside Council.

Labour councillor Ernest Gibson, the Whiteleas sex machine known for his love of everything – as long as it’s free – managed to milk the council’s expenses system and claimed almost £5,000 for travel, hotel accommodation and meals.

Pay careful attention to the thing in the grey suit, he reminds Mr Monkey of council leader Iain Malcolm. The ‘baby’ also reminds this chimp of the new mayor, councillor John Anglin.

miss piggy orders a new set of wheels – paid for by you

'Piggy's wheels'

Mr Monkey wonders how many people know that South Tyneside council recently did it’s bit to help the ailing British car industry by buying another Swedish car? A fuckwit Iain Malcolm in the town hall decided that it was time to add another black Volvo to the growing collection of council vehicles.

Apparently Iain Malcolm, aka Miss Piggy didn’t want the new deputy mayor, coun Tom Piggott travelling round the borough on his own, because he couldn’t be sure what he’d say. To avoid any embarrassing Piggott moments, coun Malcolm thought the deputy mayor should always be accompanied?

The council already has one black Volvo which comes complete with a chauffeur and it’s used mainly by the mayor, although Iain Malcolm has been known to use it when he needs a lift to the airport. Mr Monkey has now been told coun Iain Malcolm felt that one wasn’t enough so in these difficult economic times – when people are struggling financially – he  decided the time was right to buy a second one. 

He also thought he’d do his bit to help massage the unemployment figures by recruiting another chauffeur – what good is a car without a driver?