I AM TOO OLD
now for anyone, least
of all the government, to tell me
what I may or may not ingest. What
is this nannying? Where are the
conservative concerns about liberty?
What is this coalition of puritans?
None of this is actually about
helping addicts or saving lives.
Suzanne Moore,
Guardian
, 4 June
THE PROHIBITION
of certain
psychoactive substances is an
affront to the basic right of bodily
autonomy: the right to do whatever
we want with our own bodies.
Stephen Reid,
Independent
, 11 June
ANOTHER MASS KILLING
is followed
by the usual thoughtless political
and media responses… If all these
events were properly investigated
(and few are, because conventional
wisdom closes the minds of
investigators), my guess is that
almost all of the killers would be
found to have been taking legal or
illegal mind-altering drugs.
Peter Hitchens,
Mail on Sunday
,
21 June
ALCOHOLISM
, like all addictions, is a
mental illness. It’s also the only
mental illness that is treated with a
strange sort of jocularity by too
many people in this country. And
that’s not surprising, considering the
attitude towards alcohol in Britain.
We all know that Britain has a
problem: the binge drinking, the
brawling, the town centres filled
with vomit on Saturday nights, the
courtrooms packed with alcohol-
related crimes. These are the extreme
– but by no means rare – examples…
Less comfortable to acknowledge is
the national attitude that alcohol is
an essential social lubricant.
Hadley Freeman,
Guardian
, 3 June
The session also identified a
discrepancy between areas that said
they had naloxone but were not
actually distributing it. This situation
could be improved by identifying local
champions, said Ford – ‘so if you haven’t
found one, get one!’
Kevin Ratcliffe, a consultant
pharmacist in Birmingham, said his
team knew of at least 40 people who
wouldn’t still be walking round the city
without naloxone. Alongside improving
awareness among prescribers and
commissioners, he advised creating
simple supply routes with fewer
opportunities for patients to drop out –
‘it’s hard for patients to get to different
appointments to get it’.
Training should be given to ‘absolutely
everybody’ he said, and there were plenty
of training packages that were free to
download, including the e-learning
module at
A targeted approach to distribution
could start with prisons and hostels, he
said, but should be inclusive, and
‘service-driven at each hub by a
naloxone champion’.
July/August 2015 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 15
naloxone
A SHOW OF HANDS
revealed that about
half of the audience – many of whom
were GPs – believed their area had
naloxone, but as Chris Ford pointed out,
‘There are many areas of good practice
but many areas where nothing is
happening at all.’
‘What’s really making an impact is
some brilliant grassroots action by
people on the ground,’ said Blenheim
chief executive, John Jolly. But Dr Judith
Yates told the audience: ‘It’s shocking if
people are prescribing methadone and
buprenorphine and not naloxone.’
Naloxone distribution was ‘just so easy
and we should all be doing it,’ she said.
Release lawyer Kirstie Douse shared
the results of Release’s freedom of
information requests to all Public
Health England directors on whether
take-home naloxone was provided in
their areas. The findings produced 47
‘yes’ answers, 80 ‘no’ answers (with ten
of these due to be rolled out), with no
response from 25 areas. (Some areas
had made progress since the survey.)
Release’s website
) offered advice to
overcoming barriers, ‘but we need to
take it forward at a local level’, said
Douse. ‘We’re happy to help with letters
and guiding you through it.’
YES
, politicians who abandon the
failed mantra of the drug war risk the
incandescent rage of the
Daily Mail
.
But how many lives have to be lost –
or simply ruined – before reality and
common sense finally prevail? Rather
than expanding the efforts of a
disastrous policy, the old failed
approach must finally be abandoned.
An earlier David Cameron would
have agreed. It is a tragedy
the current incarnation
does not.
Owen Jones,
Guardian
,
3 June
THE GOVERNMENT
seems to
have decided that banning
500 substances is not
enough. It must ban
almost everything that
gives pleasure. And what a
ban. Of all the many idiotic, ill
thought out and pointless
laws ever passed, this would be the
one of the silliest… The [Psychoactive
Substances] Bill is a textbook
example of bad legislation. It is
unnecessary, incomprehensible,
largely unenforceable, and, by
encouraging professional criminals
into a new area of business, it is likely
to prove entirely counterproductive.
Matthew Scott,
Telegraph
, 2 June
The news, and the skews, in the national media
DDN listened to a lively lunchtime
meeting of The Naloxone Action Group
(NAG) at the RCGP conference, looking
at barriers to naloxone distribution
MEDIA SAVVY
‘What’s really
making an
impact is
some brilliant
grassroots
action.’
Keep nagging
on naloxone
