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10 years in the field
‘STEEP CHALLENGES FOR
THE GAY DRUG-USING
COMMUNITY’
TEN YEARS IS A LONG TIME
in drug treatment. In
Antidote – London Friend’s specialist service for
lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender people (LGBT) –
some changes have been quite astonishing.
Our data from a decade ago shows most clients
experienced problems using alcohol and cocaine,
with a handful having partied too hard on ecstasy.
Generally though, most people managed their party
drugs reasonably safely.
We had already heard rumblings from other
major cities that crystal meth was a-coming. The
mainstream media sprang into a panic predicting the
next pandemic, but for the most part it never came.
Quietly though, away from view in private houses,
crystal was making itself known among a small
group of gay and bisexual men.
Fast forward a decade and it’s become one of
three main problems we deal with – the others,
GHB/GBL and mephedrone, having similarly
appeared as if from nowhere. A typical user tells us
how they ‘slam’ (the colloquialism for injecting,
perhaps coined to avoid associations with IV drug
use) and attend weekend-long sex parties with
several other men.
Of course, gay men, sex and drugs are hardly
strange bedfellows, but a decade ago you partied and
maybe then fell into bed if you’d got lucky on the
dancefloor; now the norm is to get app-y on
smartphones where ‘chemsex’ is readily found on
‘dating’ sites without even needing to leave the house.
The fallout is harsh: we’re seeing significant
mental health concerns, psychosis, and a group of
previously stable men whose lives, relationships, jobs
and housing are falling apart around them. Men
whose self-esteem has plummeted. Men who are
contracting HIV as heterosexual infections are falling.
It’s been a challenge for us to adapt to new drugs
and trends, such as slamming, that were never
common within our communities. As these patterns
make their way into mainstream services it’s
important for them to consider how to meet this
challenge too. Our recent report
Out of your mind
has some resources to support this.
Monty Moncrieff, chief executive, London Friend
‘HANG ON TO USER-LED
INITIATIVES’
TEN YEARS AGO,
KFx was in its terrible twos. Using
the waybackmachine I can see how, in some
respects, things haven’t changed. Cannabis had been
reclassified and the ACPO guidance was the source
of much discussion. As housing providers were still
concerned about the fall-out from the
Wintercomfort Trial, I was busy with housing and
drugs policy work, which still remains an issue today.
The legal issues still haven’t been addressed.
GHB had earlier been made a controlled drug,
but since then GBL emerged as a successor and ten
years on we’re dealing with a slew of newer
psychoactive compounds.
Ten years ago, the paraphernalia laws were slowly
being amended, allowing distribution of acids and
other paraphernalia. It’s taken a further decade for
the law on foil to be amended. The farcical nature of
the paraphernalia laws forms part of my safer
injecting training. Sadly over the past couple of
years, there has been a sharp decline in requests for
this course. I hope that in ten years time we aren’t
paying a huge price in injuries and infections from
not ensuring staff delivering injecting interventions
are adequately trained.
More than 1,000 workshops and 16,000
participants later, I think my passion for and interest
in the subject hasn’t dimmed. Sadly, not all the
organisations that I worked with ten years ago still
exist, and have perished in the new world of
competitive tenders. A huge change therefore has
been a reduction in the number of small, local service
providers and a growth in larger national ones. In
sharp contrast to the increasingly corporate nature of
provision, the grass-roots emergence of user-led
initiatives has been amazing and inspirational to
behold. Ensuring that this does not in turn become
incorporated, co-opted and neutered will be one of
the key challenges in the next ten years.
Kevin Flemen, KFx
‘SOCIETY DOESN’T TAKE
ADDICTION SERIOUSLY’
GOOD THINGS HAPPEN
, progress is made, people
do get good help and lives are transformed.
Whatever the turn of the political and funding
wheels and the system they drive have taken, over
the last ten years that has undoubtedly been the
case. Whether the good has happened because of
the system or in spite of it, I am not so sure.
The bad also happens both because of systemic
flaws and in spite of them. Progress is thwarted and
undermined as too often we take two steps forward
and then a couple or more back. Just as we seem to
be getting somewhere the operating environment
‘The vibrant recovery
movement is a fabulous
legacy of this decade.’
ANNETTE DALE-PERERA
‘We’re seeing significant
mental health concerns,
psychosis...’
MONTY MONCRIEFF
18 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| November 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com