Life Suspended - the madness of UK Drug Treatment

[StoneHappyMonday]

Storm in a teacup seems likely to me based on pure assumption though....

No Shambles.

This is big boys politics. Big changes ahead.

 

[Sadie]

Well we got rid of the Christian Gaybasher.

This Government move shall prove to be a failure too. I only hope that it happens rather quickly. I can't imagine the difficulties those affected will go through. Saying that I'm sure it's going to drive more people back on drugs, not out of want but out of necessity. What a farce this Government makes of things. Seems everything they touch turns to crap and it's the public that suffer for it.

 

[charlie clean]

Sorry to say but the OP still makes my eyes bleed and am too pissed to read the more manageable follow-ups properly... But I presume this is essentially yet another "Jump through the hoops and beg for scraps, Junky Boy/Gal" type policy? ..

Sorry 'bout dat. I've edited the OP quickly for easier reading, put some spacebars in.

It should have been a 'storm in a teacup'. But, when challenged, our dsp decided to push on rather than admit they might have been wrong.

One of the guys here is nearly 70. He's been on a heroin script since he was 25. Here you've Drug Treatment so ignorant of its field it expects withdrawal will cause him only 'minor upset'. Maybe a 'mild dose of 'flu'.

Control is far more important to this kind of dsp than addiction realities. Flawed individuals find themselves with extraordinary power over the lives of people "not like us". Instead of listening, they decide to crush us for our cheek. Corporate man applies methods devised to bash unions to bring fragile addicts into line. It's been bloody brutal. They're killing us. One dead already, two seriously ill, other decent lives badly damaged. We've committed no crime, done nothing wrong at all. Do they know what they're doing? Do they even care?

Who's going to stop them? The NTA? Like local DAAT co-ordination, they face redundancies later this year. The corproation that runs our dsp is the only employer in town. Besides, some of their mates work at the dsp, their bosses count on the solidarity of the respectable.

This is British Drug Treatment - especially since the marriage of corporate greed and mad moralists - taken to its logical conclusion. It expects addicts to collaborate in their own extirpation. For younger folk, its only achievement is to make you like them. Translated via experience modules, that means shallow, smug twerps turn you into junkies.

As a girl here wrote in the summer, " We've prised open a chink in British Drug Treatment" (www.m-alliance.org.uk) She stopped posting soon afterward. The corps could have slammed the small charity responsible for the site with a libel writ.

No light shone on British Drug Treatment since Rolleston. First the funamentalists took over, then the corporations refined things. They assumed control because nobody else gave a shit. As 'A history of the British Sytem delighftully understates, "a few determined individuals exercised undue influence". £250 million a year into corporate pockets. 300,000 addicts clogging up courts, hospitals, privatised prisons. Insanity.

Whatcha gonna dooo about it????

 

[WarmRushes]

This is a Brilliant post. I really feel terrible for what you and your fellow addicts have had to go through, the fact that your in your 60's and onwards makes it even more despicable.

I'm one of the 300,000 also, and have predictably gotten myself on a script, as I'm skint and my habit was getting silly. I've never fucked anyone over, robbed anyone, hurt anyone to fund my addiction but as soon as it's made public or your in treatment, the bullshit begins. My life was easier when I was just on the gear, I'm sick of the chemist looking treating me like a piece of shit, and the moralising superiority they seem to have over us at my drug clinic. I'm yet to see a key worker.

I'm tied in to supervised dosing for 3 months, which I'm seriously not happy about. It's like I have no control over anything. I just wanted some help FFS. I hate being called a "junkie" or a "smack head" by people who used to be my friends, despite the fact that if they didn't know I was on it, they would have absolutely no fucking idea and treat me normally. Same goes with the clinics/chemists etc, as soon as you walk in with a script you get treat like a scum bag immediately. The stigma attached to heroin is so over the top and hypocritical, it makes me want tear my hair out. I'm just a normal lad basicly, certainly no master criminal or anything. Aside from buying drugs, I don't often break any laws, and if you met me, you probably wouldn't guess.

I'm still not sure what to make of my treatment so far, yes the subutex works, and I can come off it when I feel it's necessary, but this label of a scum bag junkie is always gonna be there whether I'm clean or not, it's beyond hypocritical from the same cunts who sniff coke, mephedrone, sit around getting stoned as fuck all day on the dole, go out on the piss and cause trouble and fight with people. I might be a junkie but I'm not cruel or violent or a sneeky little thief. I'm just a student and a musician.

Anyway, I sincerely hope you guys can find away around this shit, it's bleak to imagine how it must feel to have your script and basicly your entire life snatched away..

 

[sids]

This makes me so angry.

We need to get together to make a change. Unfortunately the apathetic nature inherent to opiate users inhibits any passion for the subject.

We need to pull our finger out our asses and try to change the way we are treated by the government and medical establishment.

I've put a template letter together on my blog asking for appropriate, individualistic treatment.
I've sent it to theresa may and other government agencies involved with addiction treatment.

I also started an online petition demanding diamorphine prescribing.
Every study done on diamorphine bs meth/subs shows positive results.
The large price difference between the two is obviously an issue although I'd happily pay for it.

Stigma and negative preconceptions around heroin stop politicians standing up and challenging our failed prohibition laws.

We need professor nutt back. Thank god they sacked the homophobic Christian fundaMENTAList!

Links to petition and letter here;
http://www.heroinjunkie.blogspot.com

Stand up for your rights!

 

[charlie clean]

This makes me so angry.

We need to get together to make a change. Unfortunately the apathetic nature inherent to opiate users inhibits any passion for the subject.

We need to pull our finger out our asses and try to change the way we are treated by the government and medical establishment.

I've put a template letter together on my blog asking for appropriate, individualistic treatment.
I've sent it to theresa may and other government agencies involved with addiction treatment.

I also started an online petition demanding diamorphine prescribing.
Every study done on diamorphine bs meth/subs shows positive results.
The large price difference between the two is obviously an issue although I'd happily pay for it.

Stigma and negative preconceptions around heroin stop politicians standing up and challenging our failed prohibition laws.

We need professor nutt back. Thank god they sacked the homophobic Christian fundaMENTAList!

Links to petition and letter here;
http://www.heroinjunkie.blogspot.com

Stand up for your rights!

Spot on. Bamboozled UK addicts needs more peops like you. Proper treatment - and proper heroin- should be there for the asking. Anybody who looks at what's happened here sees how ridiculous the alternative has become.

But so many drug-users seem to delight in the criminality of it all - the chic of being 'outlaws'. Cosmic desperadoes who dare to investigate inner space.

Fucking nutters - most investigate an inner vacuum, boring.

Ah well. Whatever. Rock on, Jimmy Donne, we'll never forget you.

 

[brokenbrain]

Well lets see, recession + Cunt self servative government = cut all possible corners that don't involve taxing the rich. Its all coming down and i'm waiting for the new hell.
It looks like 60 year old junkies are going to have to resort to crime.
Every person woking in the voluntary sector is under threat of no jobs, whilst the people who receive charitable help are going to be fucked, be they mentally ill, addicts or debt ridden.
As far as I am aware drug treatment policy in this cuntry has been fucked since 1968.
Give up or find a high a different way. Or move to a better country.
Which are the ways I have had to live for a decade.

 

[charlie clean]

Well lets see, recession + Cunt self servative government = cut all possible corners that don't involve taxing the rich. Its all coming down and i'm waiting for the new hell.
It looks like 60 year old junkies are going to have to resort to crime.
Every person woking in the voluntary sector is under threat of no jobs, whilst the people who receive charitable help are going to be fucked, be they mentally ill, addicts or debt ridden.
As far as I am aware drug treatment policy in this cuntry has been fucked since 1968.
Give up or find a high a different way. Or move to a better country.
Which are the ways I have had to live for a decade.

You and about 200 million others across the world, between quarter and half a million in the UK alone.

Bit of a shame when you think about it. Folks guilty mainly of having a habit shouldn't comprise 80% of the British prison population.

Drug Treatment ought to help. Like it helped me. Unfortunately "a small number of determined individuals have been able to exercise undue influence", as 'A History of the British System' delightfully understates. Translated, that means the charlatans took over. They're so little interested in addiction - except in how it can make 'em money - they didn't even check out the neurological research; this strongly suggests nobody can come off after a certain number of years.

See ya in the Casbah?

 

[sockpuppet]

Yeah...."drug treatment" globally is primarily a scam and a lucrative industry.

Very little to do with real medicine or science or even compassion....

 

[charlie clean]

Monsta, Stone HP, B9, Warmrushes, Sids, Efie, Brims et al.

Thanks for the kind words of solidarity. I've wandered round the site and read some interesting stuff - good it's here, good to be here.

Is there ANY KIND of national UK addicts lobby that is capable of exercising either influence or concentrated pressure on policymakers?

If there is, can one of you please let me know? If there isn't, can someone tell me why not?

Elsewhere, I read of the achievements of determined Vancouverians in changing Canadian drug policy. Challenge and change is badly needed in the UK. Are all the pissed-off papaverians too dopey to essay a lil union power?

 

[hooks]

Monsta, Stone HP, B9, Warmrushes, Sids, Efie, Brims et al.

Thanks for the kind words of solidarity. I've wandered round the site and read some interesting stuff - good it's here, good to be here.

Is there ANY KIND of national UK addicts lobby that is capable of exercising either influence or concentrated pressure on policymakers?

If there is, can one of you please let me know? If there isn't, can someone tell me why not?

Elsewhere, I read of the achievements of determined Vancouverians in changing Canadian drug policy. Challenge and change is badly needed in the UK. Are all the pissed-off papaverians too dopey to essay a lil union power?

I don't think there is any sort of national addicts lobby. Why not I don't know, we should all combine forces, I reckon it's websites like this that can lead to something happening.

The amount of addicts isn't important to the government, in their eyes we're an underclass - not votewinners.

 

[sockpuppet]

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[charlie clean]

50,000 'views' for the flepth thread, 25,000 for varities of codeine. About the same for 'heroin social chat'. Less than 1000 for me and django 47 combined. Sorta says it all, don't it?

I had a 'consultation' today with my new-breed clinican and key. Funnily enough, all the perceived 'protest leaders' had one too, 48 hours before the 2nd opinions finally arrive. Whatta joke that is - none of us could lead a whore to culture. We're not revolutionaries. Some of our values may even be called conservative - we certainly want a better world for our children and grandchildren. Just like everybody else. We're regular old folk, leading normal, law-abiding lives.

But we're also heroin addicts, and suddenly this is enough excuse for some rather suspect characters to interfere with us. After nine months relentless shit, they've 'succeeded' with one or two - turned them into the junkies their corporate training led them to expect. I'm made of stronger stuff and have just about made it to the 2nds in one piece. Today, doctor and key were unusually friendly, anxious to make sure I was going to 'focus on the right thing' during the 2nd opinion. I asked them both if they were going to apologise for some pretty appalling behaviour since last May.

What planet am I living on? I must be on drugs. All I got for my troubles was some increasingly desperate efforts at justification. To themsleves, of course. It's vital they see themselves as the good guys. I don't really matter; if they address me at all it's to show their goodness. I am an addiction object, the negative of their 'positive' team identity. The projection can get pretty complex but that's for the advanced narcopsychologist. In short, I serve their purpose. I was just animated waste, the vague subject of a series of effectively rhetorical questions.

" The previous consultant just wrote your script and forgot you. didn't try to to 'help' you, did he?"
" Well, no, that's not right. Actually he - "
" You've never tried to come off before, have you?"
" Well, actually I - "
" How would you like it, writng scripts like a pusher, shorterning people's lives?"
" Well, actually pure diamorphine doesn't - "
" How am I supposed to know who's going to get infection from fixing?"
" Well, what you have to do is.." and, fuck me, there am I helping them again. These corps boys know how to reel in the suckers.

That's you lot. The suckers. The mutts. Moaning endlessly about buying 'bash' and wondering how many bottles of Gees you need to drink to get a buzz. Spending your criminlnalised lives running round in ever-diminishing circles until finally, like the fabled goobly goobly bird, you disappear up your own butt passage. Or join the 50,000 addicts who sleep under prison blankets tonight. Yours is a sorry existence, you're in a sorry state.

No blame. It's not your fault. Nor more than my key or consultant is to blame for sending me back to that way of life. We're all victims here. To varying degrees, of our own stupidity and human failings. But mainly of the cold calculations of the unseen faces who run the soft machine. They in turn are victims too, maybe of original sin. Certainly of their fears and an inability to find a better way of keeping the show on the road.

They're on the yachts or in their mansions tonight, with their trophy wives or classy corporate bitches. They've made a lot of earth-rape tokens and spend them freely. Their servants live high on the hog too - the actual work is done by miners, labourers and crafstmen who extract and manufacture creations of beauty for the exclusive enjoyment of their faceless master. There are many, increasingly unaware levels of 'I'm all right, Jack, pull up the ladder' and each is encouraged to kick the fella on the rung below. To maintain control, order, to divert frustrations, to keep everyone 'happy' with fearing and not thinking too much. In ironic, brilliant usurpation of the sexual revolution, they're told washed brains are sexier.

Right at the bottom of the pile is you - the stigmatised, despised, villified, "drug addict." I don't need to tell you about that. You know. You may even wistfully say how they ought to give you a heroin prescription to help get yourself together. But not for long. You're not really serious.

Your trouble is you won't take yourself as seriously as 'they' do. You also don't see things straight. You're drugged. There's 300,000 of you in the same boat. More than the membership of most Unions. But the only time the rest of the country hears a peep out of you is when you make your pleas from the dock. Usually to say you're "guilty".

You're guilty of not thinking enough of yourselves, of not thinking well of yourselves.. My key and doctor are your pathological opposite. Tho you're probably better people, they're the ones who feel good. And eat good. Out of keeping you down, convincing you you deserve to be treated this way.

Wake up! Lobby! Write to your MP, Cameron, the Queen, the newspaper. Call radio phone-ins. Talk to your neighbours - you may find they're not as 'straight' as you thought. You share a comon humanity and hopefully decent values. You may also find everybody's been having the same doubts of late, the same worries, the same anxiety for peace, for an end to the madness. It's hard to miss the similarities of gross exagerration in the war on terror and the war on drugs. The crazed extremists who'd subvert the constitution in the name of homeland security learned a lot of their tactics from the DEA. Both wars are mad and horribly, horribly ugly. It's a weird world when they're 'good for business'. ( If any extremist happens to read this, hey, it's none of my business. I wouldn't dream of harming you. We're all suckers in this together )
You won't be read, published or heard at first but it's hard to ignore 100. 1000, 10,000 300,000 people all saying the saying the same thing - the drug laws are crazy and drug treatments a sham. We're all normal and we want our freedom from this horrible repression that blights our lives. We don't want to be palmed off with a bit of supervised slush - we want what's right. 'You know it makes sense'. We've had enough and we ain't gonna be treated this way. Shout it from the rooftops or sing at work like Woody Guthrie did.

Up to you. Maybe you like scoring, ducking and diving, dodging the police searches and the sniffer dogs on the stations. ( see Amber Marks', Howard's girl, book on the subject) Of course, the dogs and the 'security' is to 'stop terrorrists', for your own protection. But strangely they yap like hell if they get a whiff of dope and dopers protesting they're no terrorist isn't going to stop their trip to the gaolhouse. Can't you see it's madness and it's all connected? As my old doctor used to say, everybody's been brainwashed but as long as it happens to the other fellow it doesn't matter much. Life was great in Hitler's Germany if you weren't Jew, Commie, queer or poltical. Life's great in the UK now unless you're a drug addict, minority or aware.

Tell me why a law-abiding citizen with civilised values may not investigate his own mind. Because he won't just see what goes on inside, he'll look outside as well. When you're high, you're not so afraid - you see how fear begets fear. You've been divided and conquered - if you live on a council estate, you probably don't know many peops from the muesli belt, and vice-versa. Change starts with drugs. My dsp can't separate drugs from drug takers - one is bad, thus the other is badness personified. If people like you don't do something like the same thing, but 'positively' - as you are 'high' and their thoughts are more base, you're somewhat more human, more natural than they are - then eveverybody's screwed. If your kids don't 'keep quiet' and conform they're already fed speed and sent to the 'educational psychologist'. Do something. Start with your 'drug clinic'. It's where the terrible absence of logic, of what may be termed the counter-productivity of fear-based tactics, is most obvious.
Most easily 'seen' by the disinterested outsider. The 'politically aware'.

If anyone is interested. It's up to you. I'm too tired to do anything. Time for Charlie to lay down his old grey head. Hope I don't dream 'they' are going to take my beautiful, undeluded, seriously reality-based life away from me. Nighty night, each

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

Yeah but...

you can't fight a century of prohibitionist hegemony and 2000 years of religious moral influence with a petition.

Social democracy is (with paradoxical excellence) designed to prevent 'people power'. That only works against autocratic states. A square full of peasants might chop Ceaucescu but a million on the march in London never prevented Blair going to war.

Not to mention the slight problem of trying to mobilize and unify a group of people whose common habit is often characterised by introspection and self-centredness.

There's a belief, shared by many on here, that if we just keep talking sense then we shall be listened to, then things will change. This is not how things work.

Economic power equals political power. Political power is sustained by hegemony, the mythical 'consensus'.

In the short term change will come only when the political and economic benefits of prohibition are outweighed by the political and economic problems caused by prohibition. Mexico and some places in S America are on the verge of this. At that point, our drugs may become more free.

Changing attitudes to 'junkie scum' takes a little longer. Not in our lifetime. It requires a revolution of thought, a complete hegemonic shift. The collapse of the dominant culture. Probably some setting fire to shit and stuff too. Launching Christianity on a one-way trip to outer space would help. And we're getting there on that one. Slowly. After 2000 years. Let's hope the mental scars of prohibition cure quicker eh?

Meantime...keep posting. It's good to hear sane voices here.

 

[pinkpapaver]

politics is shit, give me drugs any day!!!

you are so right stone man!!!

i used to be into politics, and thinking i could change stuff, and fightin for every cause i could, but well, least i always had fun on the way, some people took it too serious man!!

now im older and wiser, i just think politics is shit, i have too much going on in my own life to be getting angry over the tory cu(n)ts, and just have to do what i can to keep me self sane and out of trouble. yes i wish they would make such things legal, coz we all no its the criminalisation that attaches the stigms, when i was younger oh, it was great fun to be drunk all the time, and talk about bein drunk, and still, people encourage ya to have a few drinks and get drunk..... i could go on and on andon!! 8)

just let em try and fuck with my prescription, they will unleash my ginger side. its stupid, i been tryin to get by on such a stupidly small amount of jungle juice, i need more to keep me at a level of behaviour that society finds acceptable, im a nuisance, a real nuisance to others if im not medicated. (not to me self, or to people like meself tho!!) :D

ramble over!!! better be bird watchin!!

 

[charlie clean]

Yeah but...

Social democracy is (with paradoxical excellence) designed to prevent 'people power'. That only works against autocratic states. A square full of peasants might chop Ceaucescu but a million on the march in London never prevented Blair going to w
In the short term change will come only when the political and economic benefits of prohibition are outweighed by the political and economic problems caused by prohibition. Mexico and some places in S America are on the verge of this. At that point, our drugs may become more free.

Changing attitudes to 'junkie scum' takes a little longer. Not in our lifetime. It requires a revolution of thought, a complete hegemonic shift. The collapse of the dominant culture.

Spot on. Sane voice, yourself.

What about this revolution of thought? Are there satellites that can read your mind from seven miles up in space? Who the fuck would want to? Must qualify for the most boring job in the world.

But...if people who think a little saner than the fella to whom they're talking, they can advance things by pasing it on. Addicts, especially 'in treatment', tend to slip instead into 'role'. They let themselves be 'the problem' in exchange for a script - I've defective genes, fell in with a bad crowd, can't help it etc etc. Its the pas de deux of hopeless drug treatment, with the 'key' pretending to 'solution'. Thus the myth of addiction perpetuates. It's madness.

And, besides, nowadays they hardly get any drugs worth the effort. They've been scorched. Everybody's been conned. Don't play the game, you'll only lose/

Think straight. Talk straight. Do the best you can and enjoy. Have fun, expect much more in the morning. Life, as they say, is what you make it.

 

[Sadie]

you are so right stone man!!!

i used to be into politics, and thinking i could change stuff, and fightin for every cause i could, but well, least i always had fun on the way, some people took it too serious man!!

I still think I can change stuff. I guess I'll never grow up . Too bad I'm an armchair warrior these days.

Can't make any changes sitting on my arse. Kinda makes me feel a bit useless.

 

[charlie clean]

It was supposed to be The Alliance...formerly The Methadone Alliance. But even years ago I feared they were possibly too collaborationist in policy although run by wonderful people.

Are they not effective at all nowadays?

You have your work cut out for you one way or another.

Good luck. 5 years out of the clutches of the dealers AND the doctors and hoping to stay that way.

I pray you beat these bastards and get back on a serious script of man sized amps....


BTW - not unlike the UK - Canada in general and BC/Vanc in particular have also gone backwards policy-wise in recent years.

Can you give any links re Vancouver group, Socks? Many thanks for the prayers, my own are rather similar

I'd no idea about any of it a year ago - last time I looked 'drug treatment' was in the hands of one doctor, one receptionist and one pharmacist. Exactly the same percentage got off - in those days 'clean' was what you got after a bath - and nobody was claiming need for drug money as excuse for commiting crime. Nobody claimed government needed to stump out for expensive rehabs or that addicts should be forced into them or privatised prisons.

Their salaries didn't come near to to the £250 million a year government now coughs up to 'help' with the problem Problem of greedy fatcats wanting more money and the employment needs of useless middle class mouths, perhaps.

You sum up The Alliance excellently. Wonderful people constrained somewhat by the dicatates of their remit. They've helped us here, legitimised us, almost. But of course they must maintain diplomatic relations or else their own funding will disappear. Black Poppy is effectively moribund and NUN exists only as a Facebook site. The admirable Gledwood is more for blogging and addict social chit chat.

Sad the way addicts are fucked over from pillar to post so they're too fucked to do anything about it

Is there any recognised-as-legitimate Blue Light pressure group or lobby? There should be.

Life goes on. After nine long months, we see our '2nd opinions'- experienced addiction specialist cliniciand bussed in at remakable expense. Good luck scoring, y'all. If you see a few 60-70 year olds on the corner Saturday, you'll know we've been fucked over some more

 

[charlie clean]

After a long wait, we finally had our moment in the sun with the 2nd opinions this morning.

With 13 complainants there was no time for deep dialogue. Details were confirmed, injection sites inspected and a dsp worker from the 'structured days' department took the inevitable swab test. Then we went home. The 2nds reports will be finalised in about two months.

The swab tester plays in a band. He told me Dylan was his biggest influence. When I enthused about 'Together thru Life' he said he wasn't familiar with that track. In the reception I met a 20 year old with a cociane problem; he'd been on the pipe every weekend for months. He was attending several classes in gobbledygook while he waited for rehab. When I suggested he'd be better off sleeping it off and forgetting about it, he seemed surprised. He'd never thought of that before. Everyone had been telling him how much 'help' he needed.

We'll probably keep our (reduced) prescriptions. At least till the publicity dies down. We're anachronisms, throwbacks to a time when people thought for themselves. Sadly there's no money for 'out of area' transfer to NHS specialist clinics where the clinicians know what they're talking about. We'll just have to see how it goes and take it as it comes and other cliches.

Ah well, nobody's really interested. Who cares, it's only junkies. Good luck, django 47 and the rest. If you can, kick. If you can't, emigrate. Where to, I dunno. If I did, I'd be there already. The situation of the opiate addict, UK, 2011, is not a million miles dissimilar from that the Jew, Germany, 1933. No Godwins Law or 'must be on drugs' dismissals, please, these are modern times.

I'm going to stay on site, and thinking.

 

[sockpuppet]

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