Page 16 - DDN 1405

Basic HTML Version

Letters |
Media savvy
16 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| May 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
LETTERS
PEDDLING QUACKERY
I write in response to the article about
homeopathy-based treatment in your recent
edition (
DDN
, April, page 16). At a time
when tough decisions are being made about
financing services in our sector, it is
alarming to hear that commissioned
services are continuing to entertain pseudo-
science, when other frontline services
offering legitimate evidence-based
treatments are under threat.
As a manager in Wales it is reassuring
that public money on this side of the border
is being scrutinised to prevent this kind of
nonsense; only interventions endorsed by
NICE will receive public funding. I hope that
progressive services and boroughs in
England will properly consider the evidence
(and of course the study design and quality
of that evidence) before offering vulnerable
service users potentially damaging treatment
options that are based on thin air.
For a summary of the evidence relating to
homeopathy, your readers – and hopefully the
‘progressive commissioners’ in South East
England – might want to consider the two
articles below. Googling homeopathy; pseudo-
science or quackery will uncover many others.
http://bit.ly/1lt122F (The Guardian);
http://ind.pn/1hhLOw5 (The Independent)
James Varty, by email
UNFAIR ATTACK
Stanton Peele’s deeply critical article (
DDN
,
April, page 8) about 12-step mutual aid
groups accuses them of denying the reality
of recovery and driving out other more
effective approaches.
It saddens me that treatment
professionals continue to seek out ways to
attack organisations that abide by a
tradition of having no opinion on outside
issues and themselves refrain from
commenting on other approaches or modes
of treatment. Something about 12-step
fellowships seems to bring out the worst
type of prejudices in a minority of members
of the treatment community.
The fact remains that NA currently has
62,000 meetings and AA 114,000 meetings
worldwide and they want nothing more from
society than to be allowed to exist. They
don’t cost the taxpayer a penny, refuse any
outside financial contributions and save
tens of thousands of lives.
PHE has recently published guidance
encouraging treatment providers to take a
more proactive approach to facilitating
access to mutual aid for service users
(including SMART Recovery and 12-step).
This guidance was based on a review of the
hundreds of published scientific studies on
the efficacy of these groups and a helpful
summary is available on their website.
My own organisation, the Bridge Project,
has been using these techniques for some
time and we can testify to the benefits of
hosting mutual aid group meetings on our
premises and employing volunteers who
take clients to meetings. There is still plenty
of demand for our other services, such as
opiate substitution therapy and psychosocial
interventions – we just believe in giving our
clients choices.
Jon Royle, chief executive, Bridge,
Bradford, www.bridge-bradford.org.uk
MISPLACED ELOQUENCE
I write in response to Stanford Peel’s
eloquent but emotive piece in which he
raises questions about the integrity of AA and
12-step facilitation (TSF) approaches to
overcoming addiction.
I have worked in the substance use and
mental health field since 1986, when Henck
MEDIASAVVY
WHO’S BEEN SAYING WHAT..?
The sad fact is that when any drug is found to be fun – for
partying, for pleasure or even for spirituality – it gets stamped on
and made illegal. Once that happens, research is made incredibly
difficult and the potential of the drug is ignored.
Sue Blackmore,
Guardian
, 4 April
Ninety-four per cent of the
Guardian/Mixmag
[Global Drug
Survey’s] UK respondents were white and 65 per cent were men,
which doesn’t really represent UK drug culture at all. It doesn’t
make the survey worthless – a big self-selecting sample is still a
big sample – but any conclusions have to be taken with a serious
pinch of salt. In particular, I suspect people who buy drugs online
are much more likely to fill in online surveys than the average
drug user. Ultimately, the story isn’t a survey of ‘UK drug users’
but a survey of ‘middle-class white men who read the
Guardian
and fill out online surveys’.
Willard Foxton,
Telegraph
, 14 April
As recently as 1960, Scotland had one of the lowest liver cirrhosis
death rates in western Europe and now we have one of the
highest. The transformation of the alcohol environment over the
past few decades has been nothing short of spectacular… Asking
people to exercise restraint in their drinking behaviour, in an
environment that promotes both access and excess, is an
approach that will always be limited in its ability to effect
meaningful change.
Dr Evelyn Gillan,
Scotsman
, 10 April
Last week the Treasury revealed a quarter of tax revenue goes on
social security excluding pensions… In the perverse, morally
inverted world of modern welfare, reckless fecundity brings the
reward of a home beyond the dreams of average Britons.
Express
editorial, 7 April
If the NHS was run like a proper business, it would have filed for
bankruptcy years ago and gone the way of other inefficient, loss-
making state monoliths such as British Leyland and the National
Coal Board. Every incoming government enters office with a
promise to rescue the health service... But each reorganisation
simply serves to make things worse.
Richard Littlejohn,
Mail
, 11 April
Cartels are the public demon so many of us love to hate. But a
public focus on them essentially deflects attention from the way
in which other players – like the US government – are not only
complicit, but even run the show.
Gabriel Matthew Schivone,
Guardian
, 10 April
Risk, you see – the ‘risk’ cannabis could send you mad, or give you
brain damage – is not something the young understand well. The
young, remember, are invincible. Risks are for other people.
Martha Gill,
Telegraph
, 16 April
Once again, while myopic politicians preach tired sermons
pioneered by President Richard Nixon about defeating the
scourge of narcotics, there is a safer and more sensible alternative
if only they displayed a little courage.
Ian Birrell,
Guardian
, 26 April
‘Something about 12 step fellowships
seems to bring out the worst type of
prejudices in a minority of members
of the treatment community...’