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Thursday 29 April 2010 – DAY FOUR –
Daily Update
– 3
recasting the shared goal,’ he added. ‘And that
goal should be maximising wellbeing and quality
of life.’
‘It’s unusual for me to speak at this conference
as my voice is seen as critical,’ said the final
speaker, Prof Neil McKeganey from the Centre for
Drug Misuse Reseach at Glasgow University.
‘I’m seen as signalling something akin to a
crisis and disrupting an otherwise comfortable
consensus around treatment,’ he said.
‘Questioning what treatment’s for has become
sacrilege. Yet achievements of drug treatment are
so modest – to raise the quality of treatment it’s
right that we ask fundamental questions.’
When asking people in treatment what they
wanted, they said ‘to be drug free’, he said –
but this wasn’t happening. Less than five per
cent became drug free, ‘and that’s not some-
thing to be proud of’ he said.
Methadone maintenance had become
‘hallowed territory – we are expected to univers-
ally celebrate the success of methadone,’ he said.
‘But go to a methadone clinic and you won’t find
the children of the wealthy. You’ll find them in
residential rehab. Methadone is the treatment for
the masses.’
‘We should have a treatment world in the UK
which is aspirational for its clients, rather than
continued reliance on a highly addictive medica-
tion. Yet to express these views is unwelcome,’ he
added. ‘There’s a scandalous lack of resources to
help people become drug free.’
‘I don’t believe there’s a high-level metha-
done conspiracy to do down residential
rehab. There has been a lot of campaigning
for tier 4 treatment to get a larger share of
the pooled treatment budget.’
HARRY SHAPIRO, DRUGSCOPE
‘This idea that drug workers and nurses just
give out prescriptions is simply not accurate.
Please don’t tar harm reduction workers
with this brush of being happy to draw
salaries at the expense of service users. It’s
extremely emotive stuff.’
CLAIRE ROBBINS, CLINICAL NURSE SPECIALIST
‘This debate reminds me of how self-critical
we are. Drug treatment has saved many lives,
reduced crime and has been the envy of much
of Europe when it comes to tackling HIV. We
shouldn’t forget the great achievements of
drug treatment in this country.’
PAOLO PERTICA, DAAT COORDINATOR
‘We’re not worried about the fact that the
media is talking about these things. The
worry is about how the media in this country
treats the methadone debate – it’s a debate
that doesn’t include harm reduction, just
having a substance in a person’s body.’
DAMON BARRETT, IHRA
‘There’s a lot of policy conflict in this country.
We’re expecting people to move forward and
integrate and yet the Welfare Reform Act
makes it hard for people to move away from
that benefit culture.’
CLIVE EMMETT, WDP
‘We’ve had the reclassification of cannabis
and appalling public support for sterilising
drug users – the way the debate is coming
out in the media is playing to the gut
reactions of the public and politicians. The
problem is how do we keep drug treatment
on an evidence basis.’
HARRY SHAPIRO, DRUGSCOPE
‘In all likelihood we’re going to see a change of
policy and we have to be careful about the
most vulnerable people, those with complex
health problems. We’ll see people moving
towards the quick wins, and that’s where the
money will be attached. The most vulnerable
people won’t benefit from that.’
JIM McVEIGH, LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORE’S
UNIVERSITY
Can our treatment system survive a ‘policy crisis’
>> Continued from page 1
Audience Comment
In need of a lie down...
Elsa Browne from SMMGP
samples some non-invasive
acupuncture treatment from
Karen Anderson from CIC. To
find out more, visit their stand
in the main exhibition area.