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DRUG-FREE HERO
David Prentice states: ‘While the healthcare
profession may not have all the answers to
“cure” addiction, I’m yet to encounter one
type of treatment that can.’
Which is confirmation of Lord Mancroft’s
statement that: ‘The healthcare profession
can’t cure addiction.’ Mancroft doesn’t say
that addiction cannot be cured – only that it
cannot be cured by ‘treatment’.
He is right in saying that ‘doctors do not
understand addiction’, and this is confirmed
by the numbers of addicted medical staff
and the millions of involuntary addicts
prescribed into addiction by doctors.
For centuries drugs have been used to try
and solve personal problems. But, because
of their own addictive properties, they
quickly become a bigger problem than the
one the individual is trying to solve. When a
doctor does something to, or for, an addict
in the name of ‘treatment’, he is trying to
take away the addict’s own ‘solution’ to his
own personal problem.
So, the only person who can cure
substance addiction is the addict himself –
as Benjamin Mancroft amply demonstrated in
his own case. Seventy to 75 per cent of all
addicts have tried to quit, failed and still want
to quit. Their problem is not willingness, it is
lack of knowledge of effective addiction
recovery technology.
But training to achieve lasting abstinence
has been available for 48 years, and is
today delivered by 169 centres in 49
countries with a 55 to 75 per cent plus
success rate. It is however resisted by the
pharmaceuticals dominating our health
services, who want to see addictive demand
diverted to their own substitute drug
products instead of being cured.
In many countries Lord Mancroft would
be revered as ‘a drug-free hero’, but in
Britain his success in recovering himself to
the natural state of abstinence into which he
was born, stands in the way of NHS medical
treatment proliferation.
Kenneth Eckersley, CEO Addiction Recovery
Training Services (ARTS)
COMPETITION TIME
Enter the drugs meter minute
competition by 30 September
In April 2013 Global Drug Survey released
the first of its drugs meter minutes on
what’s in pills and powders sold as MDMA.
Filmed by Jon Derricott at the forensic
toxicology lab at St George’s with the
fabulous Dr John Ramsey, it’s been viewed
almost 100,000 times. Since then we’ve
done minutes with various experts on topics
as diverse as what’s in cocaine, ecstasy pill
testing, harm reduction for new drug virgins,
PMA deaths, GHB and ketamine bladder.
In 2014 we want to open the door to the
huge range of expertise that exists in the
field of harm reduction and drug education
with the first ever drugs meter minute video
completion. The first prize is £750 and free
registration to Club Health 2015 in Lisbon,
with the runner-up getting £250. All videos
endorsed by our expert panel of judges will
be offered upload onto the Global Drug
Survey youtube channel.
So what have you got to do to win?
Easy – produce and submit a video two to six
minutes in length on any drug-related topic.
Your drugs meter minute needs to be of
interest and relevance to people who drink or
take drugs. Things that we are particularly
interested in are things that
•
share knowledge in a novel fashion
•
treat the audience as responsible adults
•
address important issues and help people
make informed choices
•
can promote social responsibility and peer
intervention
•
address the weird and the wonderful
Technical stuff: Your video needs to be
filmed in HD with high quality audio. Videos
can be sent as SD card or submitted
toadam@globaldrugsurvey.com
Closing date: 30 September 2014. Judging
panel: Andrew Bennett, Katy McLeod, Jon
Derricott, Adam Winstock and Jim McVeigh.
Winners will be announced on 15 November.
Please note the videos cannot show drug
taking or endorse or promote drug use.
Videos that are accepted for publication will
be packaged within the usual drugs meter
format and carry the drugs meter watermark.
Dr Adam R Winstock, founder of the Global
Drug Survey, consultant psychiatrist and
addiction medicine specialist;
www.globaldrugsurvey.com;
www.drugsmeter.com; Twitter:
@globaldrugsurvey, @drugsmeter,
@drinksmeter
We welcome your letters...
Please email them to the editor, claire@cjwellings.com or post them to the
address on page 3. Letters may be edited for space or clarity – please limit
submissions to 350 words.
Letters |
Media savvy
14 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| April 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
MEDIASAVVY
WHO’S BEEN SAYING WHAT..?
The ONS advises a certain degree of caution when it comes to
[alcohol consumption] numbers: not surprisingly, there tend to
be discrepancies between howmuch people say they drink, and
the quantities they actually put away. It should also be noted
that medical problems caused by alcohol are at an all-time
high, and all those headlines about rising middle-aged
dependency do not come out of nowhere. The 2007-8 crash and
subsequent downturn seem to be a factor in reduced
consumption, which might undermine claims that Britain has
started to see the error of its bacchanalian ways: could it be
that we are as thirsty and dependent as ever, but just a bit more
strapped for cash?
John Harris,
Guardian
, 21 March
Shaming girls on a boozy night out will not fix Britain’s troubles
with excess indulgence of alcohol. Education, eradication of
poverty, and the minimum unit alcohol pricing are the proper
routes. Attacking women for drinking is just as wrong as it for
right-wing newspapers to pick on women for wanting careers
or for not staying at home to raise children. It’s simple, brutal
propaganda.
Anna McKie,
Guardian
, 25 March
I've never been randomly stopped and searched by a police
officer, but I've met plenty of young black men who have. The
experience varies: sometimes officers are almost apologetic,
other times full of intimidation and aggression. The evidence
shows that black people are significantly less likely to use
drugs, and yet black Londoners are six times more likely to be
stopped on suspicion of possession. It is difficult to conclude
that this is anything but racism.
Owen Jones,
Observer
, 9 March
What is legal now in Uruguay and parts of the US – cannabis
production and sales – can still get you sentenced to death in
Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere, or beheaded in Saudi
Arabia. Between these polar opposites there can be no
consensus and everybody knows it… The death penalty shows
that states are now taking sides in the war on drugs; those that
respect basic human rights and those that do not. And they
cannot work together anymore.
Damon Barrett,
Huffington Post
, 14 March
There is a cat-and-mouse game being played here. As soon as
one pharmaceutical compound is identified, catalogued and
placed on a schedule of banned drugs, the makeshift labs
create another, barely altered but strictly legal. Such activities
only make a further mockery of a system already long since
discredited.
Independent
editorial, 14 March
There is no gang or organised crime currently associated with
khat use. When criminalised in other countries, organised crime
has, for obvious reasons, stepped in to provide the supply;
there's no evidence that demand reduces. In addition, we
would be asking the police to enforce a ban that only affects
specific ethnic groups – hardly a recipe for good race relations.
Julian Huppert MP,
Guardian
, 31 March
LETTERS