Any of you who have been involved with folks who have committed offences and ended up in jail will know the catastrophic effect a few moment's madness can have on a person's life and that of their family. I have had the privilege/misfortune (depending on your perspective) to be involved with people with criminal backgrounds and to go to jail to see them. I can promise you it is a salutary experience - a moment of misjudgement can have lifelong and overwhelmingly tragic results. It has sure made me think long and hard about roadside altercations over traffic disagreements etc - in a moment of foolishness people hit each other and suddenly there is a whole new disastrous world unfolding before them. Court cases, job losses, income loss, divorce etc - the litany of unintended consequences is truly terrifying. Our boy here is about to find out first hand how an incredibly bad decision is going to effect his future life. Like all the folks in jail I alluded to, once the ball is rolling, no one is protected from having their name in the paper, reputational loss or the disdain of their peers - a whole new world of pain is about to appear and you have to just suck it up. Some people do that better than others.
Regarding Class A being the new alcohol - that is simply not the case. Every dire warning is out there for us all to know about what will happen if you indulge. Every absolutely dreadful outcome from this whole sorry tale was completely predictable and there is no professional pilot who can say they were not warned beforehand. On a personal level, I genuinely feel very sorry for this guy and the foolishness he has shown. He simply had no idea of how badly his life would unravel in very short order or he presumably would not have done it. Nonetheless, I also have to balance that against the requirement for his airline (in this case British Airways) to act quickly and decisively to preserve their reputation. As he will have discovered, when the trapdoor opens, it is very quick and absolutely final. A tragedy indeed.
As an aside, for those that equate Class A use to alcohol misuse, just have a look at this -
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk...harm%20caused.
Possession for personal use gets you up to 7 years. I would compare that to having a bottle of wine in your possession, which often gets you a pat on the back.