UK - New drug strategy urges ending addiction over maintenance

HerrSchnaufer

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BBC News

8th December 2010

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11943958

Drug addicts should completely end their addictions rather than just cut their use, the government's new strategy states.

Ministers said their "drugs-free recovery" policy would include former addicts mentoring current ones.

The plans could see addicts lose benefits if they do not co-operate.

The former Labour government's strategy was to reduce the harm caused by drugs by initially stabilising addictions, rather than trying to end them.


...


But Oscar Dagnone, medical director at CRI, an organisation that works with drug addicts, warned against trying to implement a "one-size fits all" anti-drugs policy.

"We have to focus on the individual. Everyone is different," he said.

"I have never seen a drugs problem. I have seen people with problems and using drugs to deal with their problems. The issue we have in the UK is we have just been focussing on what we see as 'problematic drug users'. Everyone is in a different situation."
 
hell...i was in the jobcentre the other day lookin for ajob...and seen poster on the wall sayin if your heroin addict that you should contact local dat clinic or your benefit will be afected...and you know what will start to happen if you dont reduce and give clean piss test..you get sanctions on your dole money...
 
One interesting sentence in the article... "Powers to temporarily ban 'legal highs' until they are proven to be medically safe will come into effect immediately."

I thought this was happening end of 2011 from previous reports. Looks like they can't wait.
 
But Oscar Dagnone, medical director at CRI, an organisation that works with drug addicts, warned against trying to implement a "one-size fits all" anti-drugs policy.

"We have to focus on the individual. Everyone is different," he said.

"I have never seen a drugs problem. I have seen people with problems and using drugs to deal with their problems. The issue we have in the UK is we have just been focussing on what we see as 'problematic drug users'. Everyone is in a different situation."

This guy knows what he's on about. Again, the Government applies the term "drug addict" to each user of a substance and assume, as Oscar Dagnone put so well, that "one size fits all".

This will just lead people in such schemes right back to the drugs they were trying to lessen their use or stay away from.
 
i'd laugh at the UK shooting itself in its own foot, if it didn't involve so much infliction of pain and suffering out of ignorance
 
Idk about the whole being on the 'dole' and being an active addict. In the US (or NY at least) like +5 years ago when I was welfare they required you to take a drug use evaluation (just like if you got a DWI) and take treatment if you wanted welfare.

I don't think its unfair. Like if you want gov't help the least you can do is get on methadone or bupe (ESPECIALLY if the fucking gov't is gonna pay for your treatment anyway!).

I'm a little drunk and may have missed something in the article. But IME if you want free money from the gov, the least you can do is use your free bus pass to go to your free treatment to get your free script from your free doctor.
 
Download the report from here: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/drugs/drug-strategy/

In it you find this little beauty, "People should not start taking drugs and those who do should stop."

Who the fuck are they (the state) to say what the fuck I, or anyone else should, or should not, do.


There is also, "We know that these substances can pose a serious threat, especially to the health of young people." when talking about legal highs…

…yet a few pages before that it says that, "their harms are unknown."
 
Idk about the whole being on the 'dole' and being an active addict. In the US (or NY at least) like +5 years ago when I was welfare they required you to take a drug use evaluation (just like if you got a DWI) and take treatment if you wanted welfare.

I don't think its unfair. Like if you want gov't help the least you can do is get on methadone or bupe (ESPECIALLY if the fucking gov't is gonna pay for your treatment anyway!).

I'm a little drunk and may have missed something in the article. But IME if you want free money from the gov, the least you can do is use your free bus pass to go to your free treatment to get your free script from your free doctor.

From what I gather they're planning on removing methadone (or any substitute) altogether saying that treatment for addicts should be to force them to go cold turkey otherwise they'll cut their benefits... though the reality seems to me atleast that if they do that people will just take alot more street opiates (that is, if they can find anything decent at the moment) and commit more crime because they'll have less money.

This is the polar opposite to the heroin clinic experiment they did that proved pretty successful.

Download the report from here: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/drugs/drug-strategy/

In it you find this little beauty, "People should not start taking drugs and those who do should stop."

Who the fuck are they (the state) to say what the fuck I, or anyone else should, or should not, do.


There is also, "We know that these substances can pose a serious threat, especially to the health of young people." when talking about legal highs…

…yet a few pages before that it says that, "their harms are unknown."

thanks for the link, it sounds like alot of hot air
 
Idk about the whole being on the 'dole' and being an active addict. In the US (or NY at least) like +5 years ago when I was welfare they required you to take a drug use evaluation (just like if you got a DWI) and take treatment if you wanted welfare.

I don't think its unfair. Like if you want gov't help the least you can do is get on methadone or bupe (ESPECIALLY if the fucking gov't is gonna pay for your treatment anyway!).

I'm a little drunk and may have missed something in the article. But IME if you want free money from the gov, the least you can do is use your free bus pass to go to your free treatment to get your free script from your free doctor.
they're wanting the patients to ween off, or they'll stop benefits.

practically, financially, and ethically, a piece of shit idea.
 
Download the report from here: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/drugs/drug-strategy/

In it you find this little beauty, "People should not start taking drugs and those who do should stop."

Who the fuck are they (the state) to say what the fuck I, or anyone else should, or should not, do.


There is also, "We know that these substances can pose a serious threat, especially to the health of young people." when talking about legal highs…

…yet a few pages before that it says that, "their harms are unknown."

OK, let's all go the Westminster bar, knock all the drinks out of their hands, slap them on the wrists and tell them, "People should not start taking drugs and those who do should stop."
 
OK, let's all go the Westminster bar, knock all the drinks out of their hands, slap them on the wrists and tell them, "People should not start taking drugs and those who do should stop."

Excellent idea! :) Now… where did I put my 'V for Vendetta' mask…?
 
it sounds like alot of hot air

Yes, that was my thought too. I have read it through once, albeit briefly and it just doesn't seem consistent. They jump from grouping alcohol and prescription drugs in with illegal drugs and 'legal highs' when it suits them. They also fall in the (convenient) trap of lumping casual users, abusers and problematic users of drugs (of all kinds).

I don't think even they know which group they want to stop using which drugs for what reason. It's a bit of a mess.
 
What hapened to the "british system" of old that contrasted with the US system of total abstinence and throwing practitioners in jail for Rx opiates and other drugs to maintain addicts. The Golden days in the UK of heroin maintenance are long gone and it looks like MMT and other harm reduction modalities are imperiled. Looks like switzerland is the last place with a sensible drug treatment policy- from the standpoint of replacement therapy.
 
i'd laugh at the UK shooting itself in its own foot, if it didn't involve so much infliction of pain and suffering out of ignorance

More like shooting itself in the knee cap, if not the head. This has got to be the most idiotic thing to come out of britains idiotic stance on drugs yet. 8(
 
I don't understand, what is so idiotic about the UK's present stance on drugs? I think, at the moment, we have one of the more enlightened drug stances.

I can see how supremely idiotic the above proposal is, however it is not current drug policy and although it is part of the government's 'strategy', this does not necessarily mean it is going to be implemented. Our government churns out a huge amount of 'strategies' each year, most of which are just for publicity and then usually disappear without a trace.
 
as far as im concerned methadone and subutex are shit replacement thearpy for heroin addiction im sure most heroin addicts would love diamorphine scripts but lets be real in this current climate of austerity the government arent going to roll out a nationwide diamorphine thearpy even in the trials that went on it was made clear it would only be made available to the hardcore 5-10% of addicts who had over a long period of time failed other options
 
as far as im concerned methadone and subutex are shit replacement thearpy for heroin addiction im sure most heroin addicts would love diamorphine scripts but lets be real in this current climate of austerity the government arent going to roll out a nationwide diamorphine thearpy even in the trials that went on it was made clear it would only be made available to the hardcore 5-10% of addicts who had over a long period of time failed other options

i hear you but please read my thread, especially the end of the fisrt page and the link on the last page that shows dramatic improvements in all levels of functioning and decreased crime, decreased average dose, basically decrease in everything that makes drug prohibition evil. The Swiss are pragmatic and seek the truth. They shy from treatise and if something works they don't fix it. Through direct democracy they made heront Maintenance therapy HMT the law of the land. Cocaine RX has been debated and studied but nothing has come of it, but they have safe smoking rooms, ect...

Swiss Replacement therapy

Please read but the people of the world except in places like switzerland and the rotterdam are getting brainwashed in mass. Fasiscm is control people by letting the status quo continue generating huge illict markets that have led to the ascendancy of corruption of unimaginable levels. The drug war is the story, ultimately ushuring in a new era of fascim and rule of the invisible hand. I support wikileaks mission but the drug war eclipses all other wars and alot of swindles worldwide. They have that moralistic weapon to pull out, we are the new oppressed minority- legally sanctioned- next gulags, concentration and/ or reeducation camps but a % will always be let use to keep the money machine flowing. If you follow the money trail and due alittle research you'll see what i mean.
 
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