Sometime around 1997 – 2000, media reporting on, about and against drug use and the drug trade in the central city of Melbourne focused on the areas around Russell and Bourke streets, an area otherwise known as The Golden Elbow. A reported influx of (relatively) inexpensive heroin led to a hightened concern around trafficking, dealing, using and drug use associated with violence. Whatever your thoughts on the interventions that were proposed to address this issue (such as fixed site needle and syringe programmes and supervised injecting facilities), the only thing that seemed to spread faster than the drugs, was the fear. James Jackson was looking wistfully out the window at the time.

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This poem is a part of Writings on the Wall.