After grabbing this photo of a pumped-up squirrel prowling around Rush Common recently, we got thinking about the fabulous story about the ‘Crack Squirrels of Brixton‘ that made the national press fifteen years ago.
Crack squirrels
Back in 2005, an improbable yarn about crack-addicted squirrels in SW9 hit the national press, with the source of the story being an entertaining post on the urban75 Brixton forum entitled, “Can squirrels get addicted to crack?“:
Yesterday I was chatting to one of my neighbours and he pointed out that the reason I had found his screwdriver in our front garden (in central Brixton) was that crack users / dealers sometimes hide bits of their stash in our garden.
An hour earlier I’d seen a squirrel wandering round the garden, digging in the flowerbeds.
Now I assume that if the squirrel dug up a rock of crack and nibbled it it wouldn’t get any effect. But what if it did? And do I face the prospect of dreaded crack squirrels? Turf wars (flower bed wars) between dealers & squirrels?Â
Squirrels have nasty bites so I’m now worried by being done over by a twitchy squirrel.
The story went viral after being covered by multiple outlets in the national press including the Daily Mirror, The Guardian, Fox News, The Independent, Radio 4, The Sun, The Register, the Jonathon Ross TV show – and the front page of the South London Press:
Drug information website DrugWise retold the whole story later:
With the notion of ‘crack squirrels’ now in the mainstream, BBC Three ran this comedy sketch six years later:
More info:
Read the original thread here: “Can squirrels get addicted to crack?”
*Thanks to Bob for starting this madness đŸ™‚
And this is just one of the many reasons I’m not mourning the demise of the South London Press.
Back in the day they’d be going on about ‘West Indian’ squirrels.