The war on drugs 'killed my sons'

[poledriver]

The war on drugs 'killed my sons'

As Government figures show, substance abuse deaths have hit record levels. One bereaved mother who lost two sons to heroin tells why she thinks it’s time to legalise and regulate the drugs trade

The knock on the door came at 3am: a police officer telling Rose Humphries that a young man had been found dead of a heroin overdose at a house in town.

It was her youngest son Roland, dead at the age of 23.

He had been trying to get off the drug. That morning, a few hours after the police officer left, a letter arrived at the family home stating that Roland had been accepted on a methadone programme to wean him off heroin.

Too late.

Instead, that afternoon Rose and her husband Jeremy went to the mortuary to identify Roland’s body. Even now, she finds the experience too painful to discuss.

Roland’s older brother Jake was so overcome by grief that it drove him back into his own heroin abuse – into more years of wasted, chaotic existence.

But in 2006, Jake went to rehab. He got himself clean, transformed his life, found love and had a baby boy with his partner.

By April 2014, he was close to completing an MA in art psychotherapy, so he could help others overcome their troubles in the way he had. But he had a brief relapse.

While his partner and 20-month-old son were away from his house in south London, Jake, now 37, took heroin. The lodger found him dead of an accidental overdose the next morning.

This time, Ms Humphries received the news in a phone call from her son’s sobbing partner. Again, the details of the conversation remain too painful to discuss.

Ms Humphries, 72, is left to ponder the ‘what ifs’. What if the trade in drugs had been legal, controlled and regulated by government – instead of exploited by criminal gangs?

What if her son had been able to get prescribed heroin, rather than having to trust the quality and safety of drugs sold by criminals? What if he had been able to go to supervised injection facility instead of taking heroin alone?

Of one thing, though, she is absolutely certain.

“The war on drugs killed my sons,” says Ms Humphries. “Definitely. No question about it.”

Continued with comments after the article -

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...egalisation-why-drugs-should-be-a7873811.html

 

[Jabberwocky]

It's sad what it takes for some people to wake up from the incredibly inhumanity of the way most places deal with the whole issue of drug use...

At least treatment seems to be getting a bit more accessible as things progress, albeit not nearly quickly enough to keep up even remotely with the need.

I wonder how long it took for the person in the article to get on methadone? I count my lucky stars I at least live somewhere and have the means to get on something like that within a week if the need were to arise ever again (knock on wood). But others living in other places are not nearly this lucky.