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OPEN LETTER FROM
DR CHRIS FORD TO
ANNA SOUBRY MP
Dear Anna Soubry,
I would like to continue our discussion
begun at the 18th RCGP working with
people who use drugs and alcohol
conference,
Joining the Dots
in
Birmingham in May, when you took
questions from the stage.
I said I felt it was vital that drug
use is treated as a health issue, not
as a criminal issue and I was truly
shocked to hear you say that you
are in complete disagreement with
this. Your view is at odds with the
recent BMA report
Drugs of
Dependence: The role of the medical
professionals
which clearly states
the that the emphasis on health has
been lost as the focus instead has
been on the legal and criminal
justice aspects of drug misuse. With
the report, the BMA aims to refocus
the debate on this as a health
issue, led by the medical profession,
which is well placed to take such a
key role. To quote Professor
Mansfield, ‘The medical profession
should look squarely at the issue
and debate it as a medical
problem’. Professor Mansfield adds:
‘The BMA believes that drug users
are patients first. That’s why we
want health to be at the heart of the
debate about drugs policy’.
This view is also supported by the
chief medical officer, Professor Dame
Sally Davies, who said that at present
illegal use of drugs was treated
mainly as a law and order issue. She
says the research suggests the focus
on criminalisation is ‘deterring drug
users from seeking medical help’ and
‘I think we have a health problem,
and we would do well as a nation to
look at is as a health problem. I think
there’s quite a lot of evidence from
other countries, and science, about
how you could go about that.’
We know that the criminalisation
of people who use drugs leads to
increased stigmatisation and
marginalisation, limiting the potential
effectiveness of health interventions,
particularly for problematic users.
Criminalisation tends to maximise the
risks associated with use, such as
unsafe products, behaviours and
using environments; increase the
health harms created or fuelled
directly by drug law enforcement, or
indirectly through the wider social
impacts of the violent illegal trade it
creates, as well as creating political
and practical obstacles for us as
health professionals in doing our job
addressing drug-related health
problems and reducing harms, and
8 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| July 2013
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
LETTERS
I HAD GONE TO INDIA TO SORT MYSELF OUT
– kick the heroin and get some
hash to smuggle back to London once things had calmed down. Several years
later and I was begging on the streets, scamming tourists, and my heroin
addiction had gone from smoking to injecting. India wasn’t turning out to be
my saviour. I was dying and it had nothing to do with where I was. It was the
alcohol and drugs killing me – but I couldn’t stop.
I remember the moment of clarity. It was in a seedy bed and breakfast with
my junkie girlfriend Debbie, her neck stuck out begging for a hit, a prostitute
and her pimp boyfriend in the corner. For the first time I was watching myself
from above. I didn’t recognise me. I wasn’t a big time dealer. I wasn’t a popular
guy. I wasn’t even a half decent petty criminal. I was a junkie. A junkie with a
needle in my arm and no friends who were any different. Worse than all that
– I had a full-blown disease that needed medication every minute of every day
and what was cheap before was now becoming impossible.
The worst of it was I couldn’t muster the energy to care. I accepted this
as my life. Nobody was coming to save me. It no longer mattered if it was
India or London. I just had to do it until I died, which, by the look of me,
wouldn’t be long.
Shortly after my moment of clarity I returned to London, leaving Debbie
behind. A few months later she was found slumped against a toilet door,
dead. I was on the streets. A homeless bum mugging people and scamming
people. I couldn’t get any lower – I just stayed there for several years, as low
as I could be. I got stabbed, almost burnt to death and overdosed more times
than I can remember. Somehow, I was still alive. I contemplated suicide, but
couldn’t even do that. The change came for me in St Thomas’s, hitting up in
the toilet. I was sloping down the wall, passing out, finally dying.
I woke up. I didn’t know how long I had been out, but I woke up and I
couldn’t see anything. I thought I was blind. It was the last straw for me. Then
I saw a light from under the door as my eyes adjusted – I had just fallen
asleep, which was worse. Nobody had checked on me for hours and the lights
had been turned off. I had overdosed, passed out, and been left to die. Yet,
here I was – still alive.
Tears were shaking down my face. I was crying and I was shaking and I was
begging. I was on my knees and I was praying.
If there’s anything out there, if there’s anything… please help me. Take me
from this miserable life or save me. I know I’m a waste with a waste of a life
but please – save me. Give me life.
Mark Dempster is author of
Nothing to Declare: Confessions of an
Unsuccessful Drug Smuggler, Dealer and Addict
, available on Amazon.
Next issue: Will Mark get the help he needs?
FIRST PERSON
NOTHING
TO DECLARE
In the fifth part of his
personal story, Mark
Dempster reaches crisis
point as he realises his
luck has finally run out
‘I said I felt it was vital that
drug use is treated as a
health issue, not as a
criminal issue and I was
truly shocked to hear you
say that you are in complete
disagreement with this.’