BLACK AND WHITE AND RED AND WHITE LINES ALL OVER

The British stupidity with drugs stories is given a chance to trip over its own feet today, with the publication of what the Daily Mirror insists are "shocking pictures" of Kate Moss. What is she doing? Killing puppies for fun? Pissing in an old lady's handbag? Hiding turds under the lid of a Mr Kiplings' individual apple pie and putting the box back on a shelf?

No...

THE Daily Mirror today reveals shocking pictures of supermodel Kate Moss snorting a fat line of cocaine during a debauched drugs and drink session with junkie lover Pete Doherty.

Good god... a model who's dating a junkie doing cocaine? Surely not... not in a newspaper in 2005?

As the white powder induces a sudden rush to her brain, she rocks back in her seat and laughs hysterically. The coke is kicking in.

The Mirror's Stephen Moyes is pretty clear in his description of what it feels like to take cocaine, which shows the power of doing your research properly.

Within seconds she leans forward and again sniffs into a tightly rolled-up £5 note, hoovering up every last grain of the Class A drug.

Okay, now I am shocked. She's snorting with a crappy old fiver? Isn't Rimmel paying her properly?

It is clear from the extraordinary images, captured during a Mirror undercover investigation, that the 31-year-old catwalk queen is a practised user.

Really? There's so much cash swishing round in the Trinity Mirror coffers right now that they wasted money on an undercover investigation to find out if Kate Moss uses cocaine? God alone knows what they've got lined up for tomorrow - maybe they've got someone to sign off on pumping a huge team in to see if the light goes off when the fridge door shuts.

In a West London recording studio, though, Kate chats casually with Doherty and pals as she absent-mindedly crushes and chops out the chunky lines on the back of a plastic CD cover.

With her blonde hair hanging untidily around her shoulders, the model icon, worth £30million, prepares up to 20 lines of coke in just 40 minutes.

Good god, not only is she doing cocaine, but she's let her hair get all messy?

Using a mammoth stash, which she kept safely wrapped in her handbag, Kate - mother of a two-year-old daughter - has no qualms about being seen with the illegal drugs.

Doherty and some of his mates mill around, eager to join the binge and impatiently asking to help prepare the drugs.

Bloody hell - she's chopping out a line every two minutes, and yet Doherty can't wait that long?

But there's more. Of course there's more:

She joins in a discussion about cannabis while joints are passed around some members of the group.

Holy seals, not just using one drug but talking about another. Is anyone safe?

The Mirror goes on to announce that she'd also drunk alcohol - of the sort available over-the-counter in supermarkets and stores - earlier in the evening. And what does all this booze and coke do? Effects, dear boy, effects:

Kate, 10 times a Vogue cover girl,looks unsteady and exhausted as the session continues.

Between lines of cocaine, she repeatedly twitches her nose and rubs her nostrils.

Is this any way for a person who advertises pants and mascara to behave? Relaxing in a private place while looking a bit unsteady? And rubbing her nose?

Yes, it does mark Moss out as being gently hypocritical, in that she has often claimed to not have (much) interest in doing (some) Class A drugs (anymore), but she's never campaigned against them or castigated other users - which makes her a lot lower in the ranks of hypocrites than, ooh, some tabloids who turn a blind eye to their staff marching off into the cubicles two by two while running this sort of expose; or who attempt to chill their reader's blood with the discovery that some thin girl might be doing coke while simultaneously echoing and supporting Oasis - how can it be unacceptable for Moss to do some coke in a recording studio, and yet Bill Borrows will cheerfully supply a couple of pages calling for the Gallagher brother's elevation to sainthood despite their not-entirely-hidden cocaine use? Because I'm really confused here: The Mirror will throw its weight behind a promotional campaign featuring a band who sing about how all your plans are made when you're chained to the mirror and the razorblade, and yet calls for the head on a plate of someone who discretely uses the drug in public?

Yes, cocaine is boring. People trying to sniff some out of an evening are dull company before they make contact; they tend to be even duller after they succeed. But it's nowhere near as dull and boring as a newspaper that once had guts and a mission trying to pretend to be shocked and outraged by someone with a little habit. Perhaps if the Mirror wanted an angle, they should write about the misery and crime created by treating cocaine this way causes; that if we stopped playing at being shocked everytime we find someone does a line we might be able to start to do something about a product whose production and distribution is mostly in the hands of mobsters and paramilitaries. Mossy should be ashamed of herself - but not for the reasons the Mirror thinks.

music daily mirror kate moss pete doherty babyshambles cocaine