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drinkanddrugsnews
| November 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
TIME TO MISBEHAVE
Listening to
Thought for the Day
this
morning suddenly helped me to
digest an extraordinary week. Vicky
Beeching spoke about how honesty
and truth must come first and
niceness and love are not always
synonymous, so sometimes love
requires unsettling the status quo.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich famously
wrote: ‘Well-behaved women (and
men) rarely make history.’ Many
others and I have been doing some
misbehaving over the past week, and
we all need to do more!
Firstly there was the first
European Conference on Hepatitis C
and Injecting Drug Use, which was
packed full of people with passion
and commitment fighting to improve
access to HCV and OST. People put
themselves at risk to demand better
services. Knowing a little about the
oppression in some European
countries, I was truly humbled by the
user and harm reduction groups
working in those countries.
Misbehaving and fighting for their
rights can easily lead to them ending
up in prison.
Then came the Action Summit on
Naloxone – again a full room of
committed people who want to
unsettle the status quo of poor to no
naloxone provision in England. How
can PHE and DH point us towards
localism as a reason for not sending
out a clear national message, as
hundreds of people die because of the
lack of a safe, evidence-based,
effective medication, whereas in Wales
– where they have it – drug-related
deaths have reduced by 53 per cent?
Hopefully the newly set-up NAG
(Naloxone Action Group) will continue
LETTERS
to misbehave and get change.
But sadly there are many too
fearful of losing jobs or funding and
keeping their heads down. How can
DrugScope repeat their
State of the
sector
survey with no mention of
harm reduction at all (just one brief
mention of ‘harm minimisation’ –
harm reduction for wimps). The single
mention of naloxone only reinforces
the October 2015 date – what about
now? It is a licensed medication and
at a minimum should (and legally can)
be prescribed to everyone who uses
opioids, leaves detox or rehab and
starts OST. That is the message that
needs to be carried. In the survey,
there is nothing re access to OST,
maintenance, pressure to exit
treatment etc and nothing explicit on
NSPs, although many of us in the
harm reduction group had asked for
many of these things to be added
after the last survey. If you are doing
a state of the sector survey you have
to ask the right questions.
From endless emails, posts on
SMMGP and other forums, Twitter and
phone calls, it is clear that people are
being forced into options they are not
choosing for themselves. Services are
being cut, re-tendering is causing
chaos, commissioners are ignoring
the enormous evidence base and
commissioning services for detox only,
and most importantly people are
dying. I was first saddened and then
angered to get a phone call from a
drug worker just after I had listened to
Thought for the Day
to say she was
being forced to reduce the methadone
by 5mls a day on a very vulnerable
patient of hers after he had failed an
appointment. She completely
understood that this was the most
risky thing to do and instead wanted
to visit him. I hope she misbehaved
and potentially saved his life.
We all know the system isn’t
working and it is time to stand up
and be counted and misbehave –
there’s lots we can do. We have been
lied to, told there’s no alternative, no
choice, and that you don’t deserve
any better. To give the last word to
Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Be the change you
want to see’.
Dr Chris Ford, clinical director of
IDHDP, by email
WALK THIS WAY?
As someone who has attended the
last three recovery walks I was really
looking forward to Manchester this
year. The walk has always been a
massively inspiring event, bringing
people together from all across the
country to celebrate recovery.
However, I have to say what a
disappointment Manchester was to
me and my family. Firstly, it was clear
that the numbers attending were
massively down from Brighton and
Birmingham, perhaps even half as
many as last year. If it’s going to be
in Durham next year it’s a fair bet
that many from the south like me
won't be able to attend, so are there
going to be even less next time?
I was also really disappointed that
this year there didn't seem to be
anything to entertain families. I'd
travelled up with two young children
and had hoped that like previous
years there would be something to
keep them entertained, but alas there
was very little.
Finally, I had travelled up by coach
and had spent a fair bit on transport
etc which when you’re on benefits
isn’t easy. I had at the very least
expected there to be free water as
there had been on previous years.
Not only were there no free water
bottles but I was expected to pay
£1.50 for a can of pop! Also last year
at Birmingham we had got free t-
shirts but this year we were expected
to pay a fiver for the privilege.
All this makes me feel the walk
has lost its original ethos. It now
appears to just be a money-making
and promotional tool for the
organisers. Perhaps it is time for local
activists to reclaim the walk. Maybe
we could have locally organised
regional walks that involved local
people and promoted local groups?
Yours in disappointment,
Charlie Gillespie, by email
TIME TO REFLECT
I am a person in long-term recovery
since 1999 and have seen some really
good models of delivery in drug
services over the years, but also some
not so good practice. I believe that
service users are experts by
experience and are absolutely the best
people to work in the field. However,
what has bothered me throughout my
career is the welfare of service users
when they move into long-term recovery
and are then employed by a service.
I have seen people be employed
when they are clearly not ready and
I’ve seen them relapse and get
dismissed or leave. To my knowledge
there has never been a national
policy on this and agencies just have
‘We all know the system
isn’t working and it is
time to stand up and be
counted and misbehave...’