Trainspotting Generation

The heroin and crack cocaine addicted Britons of the 1980s and 90s, memorably depicted in Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel, “Trainspotting.”

Reporting for The Times of London on the latest British drug addiction data, David Rose noted:

Officials heralded the end of the “Trainspotting” generation as the number of 18 to 24-year-olds seeking treatment for heroin and crack problems has fallen 30 per cent from 12,320 in 2005-06 to 8,603 last year.

Commenting on this fall in numbers, the chief executive of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, Paul Hayes, said:

“Young people are very savvy. They have seen the consequences of using heroin for earlier generations. It’s no longer seen as having any glamour attachment to it at all.”

Irvine Welsh vehemently rejected suggestions that his book (or Danny Boyle’s movie) glamorized heroin use. Speaking to The Guardian in August, Welsh said: “I look now at all the drugs education; they’re actually using outtakes from Trainspotting!”