Lying in a hospital bed, 24-year-old Stacey Rhymes cuddles a childhood toy before putting out an arm to her mother.

‘Hold my hand, Mum,’ she whispers, then slips into a coma. A few hours later, on a spring afternoon earlier this year, the girl with a whole life ahead of her was dead.

The once radiantly pretty Stacey had drunk herself to death on cut-price bottles of wine bought from corner shops, supermarkets and local pubs. She had started drinking at 17 and seven years later her body simply gave up under the constant assault from alcohol.

 Her mother, Louise, says: ‘I now want the world to know exactly what happened to Stacey and why. It was a terrible way to go.   ‘Her stomach was like a balloon, as if she was nine months pregnant. Her long hair was falling out, her urine was coloured black and she could not eat. She was scared to look in the mirror because her eyes were canary yellow. The only way to stop the pain at the end was morphine.’

The story of Stacey Rhymes is a salutary one. She is one of the youngest people in modern Britain to die of alcohol abuse. And her mother, speaking for the first time, is determined that the loss of her daughter will not be in vain.
 
She has set up a Facebook website in memory of Stacey to highlight the dangers of alcohol – and particularly its increased availability following New Labour’s 24-hour drinking laws – which now kills more young women than cervical cancer, and more people, generally, than hard drugs.

A film clip about Stacey on YouTube, put there by her mother, has been watched by 16,000 people in a fortnight. It is now one of the most viewed in Britain by children and teenagers.

At the family’s terrace home, in Bramcote, on the outskirts of Nottingham, where Stacey grew up with her brother, Jay, now 19, sister Katie, 21, and stepfather, Terry, her mother says: ‘Alcohol is as treacherous as a Class A drug. Yet it’s available at all hours and at rock-bottom prices.

‘This morning, I saw a pack of four cans of lager at the supermarket for 92p. You can’t get four cans of children’s pop for that! Young children should be warned about alcohol in the way they are warned about drugs.  ‘I want them to be shown a photograph of Stacey’s face when she was dying. She was killed by alcohol – a drug that is as easy and cheap to buy as a packet of sweets.’

Since the relaxation of licensing laws in November 2005 – which allowed round-the-clock sales of drink in pubs, clubs, shops and supermarkets – the cost to the nation both socially and financially has been huge. Coupled with low prices for alcohol, there is now an orgy of drunkenness that rivals the gin epidemic of early Victorian times.

The facts are stark. The numbers dying from alcohol-related health problems is rising. In 1999, there were 4,000 deaths. Today, the figure has doubled, with the age of the victims going down, too. Hospitals admit for emergency treatment more than 9,000 drunken teenagers every year.

According to Alcohol Concern, 800,000 children below the age of 15 drink regularly in Britain. Nearly two-thirds of them will have had alcohol in the past month – with one in seven consuming enough to make them sick. One in three think, it is acceptable to get drunk once a week.

Campaigners say that one in ten eight-year-old boys (double the figure ten years ago) and a quarter of 11-year-old girls (ten per cent more than in 1995) have also experimented with alcohol.    Staff at the casualty department of Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool will not be surprised by these statistics. A survey by the hospital – which admits only under-17s – showed that more than half the children treated after binge-drinking had bought their alcohol from a pub or a shop.

Nearly three-quarters of patients are girls, and the favourite tipple is vodka. Every week, seven or eight drunken youngsters are treated at the hospital – a quarter so ill that they have to be put on a ward or go into intensive care.

According to Pat McLaren, an Alder Hey spokeswoman: ‘They come in on a Friday and Saturday night in particular. Some are found unconscious on the street or even beaten up. We get them sober and contact their parents. We try to get them to change their ways.’

Alder Hey and Liverpool are not alone. Cases of liver cirrhosis in 20 to 30-year-olds – who often started drinking as children – have doubled in less than a decade.  Eight women in Britain die each day from liver disease – often at ages younger than men with the same condition because their bodies are more sensitive to alcohol poisoning.

As Professor Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians, warns: ‘The damage to society from alcohol is greater than from drugs.’   Dr Gray Smith-Laing, a gastroenterologist at Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham, Kent, says: ‘The young of all social backgrounds think it is cool to get completely legless, yet nothing could be more uncool. This is a classless and sexless phenomenon. We have not seen the peak yet.’

Young women such as Stacey Rhymes make up half his caseload. Some have irreversible liver damage from drinking. One woman of 26 he treated recently died of liver cirrhosis.  Dr Smith-Laing says: ‘We need a dramatic rise in the price of alcohol so it is no longer affordable for the young.’
 
It is against this frightening background that Stacey’s mother has bravely decided to speak out.

She reaches for a pile of treasured childhood photographs. They show Stacey on her first birthday; at eight in a white hat at a family wedding. There is one of her with bright, clear eyes and long thick hair smiling at the camera  - she is just 17, and it is a few months before she began to drink.

Louise, 43, says: ‘Stacey had a wonderful childhood and we were a close family. There wasn’t a lot of money, but we did old-fashioned things. We went to the park for picnics and walks around Nottingham.  ‘She had lots of friends and when she left school at 16, she got a job in a local pub as a waitress. She met a boy, and there was even talk of an engagement.’

But things were soon to change. ‘For no apparent reason, Stacey began to drink. She had arguments with the boyfriend about it. She lost the job she loved and her boyfriend, too. She was just drinking all the time. She became foul-mouthed. She stole money from us, her family, to buy the alcohol,’ says Louise. ‘Stacey would go out drinking at night then lie in bed all day. I couldn’t get her up, even though I tried before I left for work.

‘In the end, we found her a housing association flat in Nottingham, where she moved. We thought it would be a fresh start.’ Nothing could be further from the truth.

‘Stacey then got in with a bad crowd. Her friends were all drinkers, too. She would lie in bed with a bottle. A few times, she burned the bedclothes with her cigarettes. She got involved in a serious brawl, and was sent to prison for eight weeks.

‘We were horrified, but she came out looking far better. She had not been able to drink while inside. We took her back to her flat where there were eight weeks – £800-worth – of giro cheques from the benefits’ office. Stacey spent every penny on drink. She was evicted from her flat due to debts on the rent.’   Stacey wouldn’t move back home because her mother and stepfather, a self-employed builder, refused to allow her to drink. Revolted by what alcohol had done to their daughter, they are now teetotal.   Instead, Stacey found a place at a hostel in Derby, five miles from Nottingham. ‘That lasted five days before she was thrown out for drinking,’ recalls her mother.

By now, her life was out of control. For a time, Stacey lost contact with her family. She lived rough in Derby. In desperation, Louise tried to get her daughter sectioned under the mental health laws so she would be taken into hospital. ‘But the authorities said she was quite normal, just an alcoholic.’ she recalls today.   Stacey was now drinking five litres of wine a day and some cider, too. She no longer dressed fashionably, put on weight and didn’t eat properly. ‘Her stomach was huge and she was very ill,’ her mother says.

On March 28 this year, Stacey was admitted to Derby Hospital – to Ward 308 which deals with alcohol-induced liver problems. She had been to her GP because her face had gone yellow and she was having trouble walking because her limbs were swollen. The doctor told her to go to hospital immediately  -  it took her a week to do so.

Dr Jan Freeman, a consultant in whose care she was put, says: ‘Stacey was at the end of the road. She could have been saved only by a liver transplant. Like lots of young people, she never thought it would happen to her. Well, Stacey’s death shows it can happen to some.’    There is no doubt that Stacey was well looked after in the hospital but, during the next seven weeks, until her death on May 22, she managed to discharge herself three times and return to drinking.

Once, she walked out in her pyjamas, hailed a taxi then disappeared. Derby police put out appeals for the public to look for her. Her parents searched, too.    He mother recalls: ‘We got her back to the hospital on each occasion. The last time was on May 17. She had been staying with a drinking buddy. She rang up saying she was being sick and it was streaked with blood. Her skin was itching, a symptom of alcohol poisoning.

‘I knew that we would lose her, because of her colour. I thought she wouldn’t make it over the weekend. But three days later, she had picked up and told us she was scared of dying. I told her that if she stopped drinking, she would live.’    It was, of course, a white lie. The next day, the hospital rang Louise to say Stacey had a hole in her stomach, caused by acid from a ruptured peptic ulcer. There was nothing more the doctors could do.   Within 24 hours, the family were called to the hospital for the final time. Stacey died in her mother’s arms of abdominal bleeding and alcohol-related liver disease.

As confirmation of Stacey’s tragic story, Nick Sheron, a liver specialist at Southampton General Hospital and secretary of campaign group, Alcohol Health Alliance, says drink-induced liver disease – once the preserve of middle-aged men – is affecting all ages and both sexes.

He explains: ‘If they are alive, it is never too late to stop drinking. But, often the symptoms show up so late that half the patients die before they have a chance to change their ways.

‘In the Sixties and Seventies, wine used to be nine percent proof, now it is 13 percent. Beer was 3.2 percent, now a lager is five percent. The size of a wine glass is bigger, too  -  from 125ml to 175ml, and in some cases 250ml. That is a third of a bottle.’

Dr Sheron warns that alcohol is being used as a drug, instead of a part of a social event or accompaniment to a meal. ‘The young drink to get wasted as quickly as possible. They think if they can remember the night before it is not a good night out, and 24-hour licensing is one of the problems,’ he cautions.

With prices so low, Professor Mark Bellis, director of the Department of Public Health at John Moores University in Liverpool, adds: ‘A young person with £10-a-week to spend can get drunk three times a week.’   The scale of the crisis cannot be over-stated. Alcohol abuse, leading to either injury or disease, now costs the NHS £1billion annually with 40 per cent of casualty departments’ admissions being drink-related.

Significantly, the London Ambulance Service says that alcohol-related emergency calls have increased by 12 per cent since 24-hour drinking laws were introduced.   As spokeswoman Anna Lowman says: ‘One of the aims of the new laws was to eradicate the 11pm to 2am disorder flashpoint when the pubs and off-licences used to close. But this is still our busiest period. Fourteen per cent of all calls during these hours are linked to drinking.’

Yet this is not the only catastrophic side-effect. The Cabinet Office admits the real cost of drinking is £20billion a year if you include suicides, alcohol-fuelled crime, anti-social behaviour, depressive illness, family breakdown and domestic violence.

Only this month, the Local Government Association – representing councils – warned the 24-hour drinking plan to emulate a European style cafe-culture in Britain had failed miserably. It costs £100 million a year to oversee the late licensing system, provide staff to clean town centres of vomit or urine (often both) and help for the ‘walking wounded’ at the end of a night’s hard drinking.

At Stacey Rhymes’ funeral in Bramcote, held near the park where the family used to picnic, there were 150 mourners – some were her old school friends. As her mother says: ‘Stacey chose her way – and they theirs. They have got married, have children and careers. They are enjoying life. My daughter drank herself to death.   ‘She never had any problems getting her hands on another bottle. In many ways, she was a victim of our times.’

 Source  Newspaper cutting  – sent to NDPA not identified.

ACHIEVING THE PRESIDENT’S GOALS FOR REDUCING

YOUTH DRUG USE

Results from the 2004 Monitoring the Future Study

This year’s results from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study further consolidate the historic reductions observed in last year’s results. In 2003, current use of any illicit drug and marijuana current use each declined 11 percent—exceeding the President’s strategic goal of a 10 percent reduction in 2 years from the 2001 baseline. This year’s MTF results indicate that current use of any illicit drug has declined 17 percent since 2001, while current marijuana use has dropped 18 percent.

Highlights of findings from the 2004 MTF on youth use of illicit drugs, alcohol, and tobacco; changes in anti-drug attitudes; and the impact of anti-drug advertising include the following—all changes discussed here are statistically significant:

Changes Since 2001 in Substance Use Among Grades 8, 10, and 12 Combined

Use of any illicit drug in the past 30 days (current use) among students declined 17 percent, from 19.4 percent to 16.1 percent. Similar declines were seen for past year use (13%, from 31.8 % to 27.5 %) and lifetime use (11 %, from 41.0 % to 36.4 %).

As a result of these dramatic declines, approximately 600,000 fewer youth in 2004 are using illicit drugs than in 2001.

Marijuana use, the most commonly used illicit drug among youth and the drug of primary interest to the Media Campaign, also declined significantly. Current use declined 18 percent, from 16.6 percent to 13.6 percent; past year use declined 14 percent, from 27.5 percent to 23.7 percent; and lifetime use declined 11 percent, from 35.3 to 31.3 percent.

Declines in youth drug use were not limited to these two categories. The use among youth of many of the most commonly used classes of substances are in decline, including LSD, MDMA (ecstasy), amphetamines, methamphetamine, steroids, alcohol, and cigarettes.

The use among youth of the hallucinogens LSD and ecstasy among youth has plummeted.  Lifetime use of LSD fell 55 percent (from 6.6% to 3.0%) and past year and current use each dropped by nearly two-thirds (from 4.1% to 1.6% and 1.5% to 0.6%, respectively).

Lifetime use of ecstasy dropped 41 percent, from 7.4 percent to 4.4 percent.  Past year and current use were each cut by more than half (from 5.5% to 2.5% and 2.3% to 0.9%).

Use of amphetamines, traditionally the second most commonly used illicit drug among youth, also dropped over the past two years. Lifetime use declined 20 percent, from 13.9 percent to 11.2 percent. Past year use fell 21 percent (from 9.6% to 7.6%) while current use fell 24% percent (from 4.7% to 3.6%).

Lifetime, past year and current use of methamphetamine among youth declined by 25 percent each — from 5.8 percent to 4.5 percent, 3.4 percent to 2.6 percent, and 1.4 percent to 1.1 percent, respectively.

Lifetime and annual use of steroids dropped 28 percent and 23 percent, respectively (from 3.2% to 2.3% and from 1.9% to 1.5%).

The use of alcohol, the most commonly used substance among youth, also declined. 

Lifetime, past year and current use each declined by 8 percent (from 65.7% to 60.5%, 58.4% to 54.0%, and 35.7% to 32.9%, respectively). However, there was little improvement in these measures between 2003 and 2004. Reports of having been drunk in the past two weeks declined between 10 and 12 percent in each of the three prevalence categories.

Cigarette smoking among youth continued to decline. Lifetime and current use each dropped 20 percent (from 49.1% to 39.5% and 20.3% to 16.1%, respectively). However, there was little improvement in these measures between 2003 and 2004.

MTF began collecting data on the non-medical use of Oxycontin in 2002. In 2004 there was a 24 percent increase in past year use of Oxycontin for all three grades combined compared to 2002, from 2.7 percent to 3.3 percent.

Changes From Last Year in Substance Use among Grades 8, 10, and 12

MTF collects data from three specific grades: 8th, 10th and 12th graders. There were no statistically significant changes between 2003 and 2004 found for any grade in lifetime, past year, and past month use of hallucinogens in general; hallucinogens other than LSD; cocaine in general; crack cocaine; amphetamines; tranquilizers; heroin and other narcotics; and being drunk. Additionally, there were no statistically significant changes for any grade in lifetime or past year use of Oxycontin, Vicodin, or Ritalin and past year and past month use of alcohol. The following statistically significant differences were found:

Among 8th graders:

Any illicit drug use in the past month declined 13 percent, from 9.7 percent to 8.4 percent.

Marijuana/hashish use in the past month declined 15 percent, from 7.5 percent to 6.4 percent.

Lifetime inhalant use increased 9 percent, from 15.8 percent to 17.3 percent.

Lifetime, past year, and past month use of methamphetamine declined 36 percent (from 3.9%to 2.5 percent), 40 percent (from 2.5%to 1.5%), and 50 percent (from 1.2% to 0.6), respectively.

Lifetime and past year use of steroids declined 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively (from 2.5% to 1.9% and from 1.4% to 1.1%).

Among 10th graders:

Lifetime use of MDMA (ecstasy) declined 20 percent, from 5.4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Past month use of powder cocaine increased 36 percent, from 1.1 percent to 1.5 percent.

Past year use of GHB declined 43 percent, from 1.4 percent to 0.8 percent and past year use of Ketamine declined 32 percent, from 1.9 percent to 1.3 percent.

Lifetime use of steroids dropped 20 percent, from 3.0 percent to 2.4 percent.

The only decline in 2004 of cigarette use occurred among 10th graders. Lifetime cigarette use declined 5 percent, from 43.0 percent to 40.7 percent, and smoking half a pack or more per day declined 20 percent, from 4.1 percent to 3.3 percent.

Among 12th graders:

Lifetime use of LSD declined 22 percent, from 5.9 percent to 4.6 percent.

There were no statistically significant changes found in each grade from last year in lifetime, past year, and past month use of hallucinogens in general; hallucinogens other than LSD; cocaine in general; crack cocaine; amphetamines; tranquilizers; heroin and other narcotics; lifetime, past year and past month use of alcohol; and being drunk. 

Anti-Drug Attitudes

A key aim of the Media Campaign is to improve youth anti-drug attitudes and perceptions; these changes are thought to be precursors to positive behavior change. We have seen improvements among youth in the perception of the harmfulness of using drugs and disapproval of people who use them, particularly for marijuana.  Statistically significant changes include the following:

Among 8th graders, both the perception of the harmfulness of trying marijuana once or twice and smoking it regularly improved from the previous year, by 6 percent and 3 percent, respectively. Perceived harmfulness of smoking one or more packs of cigarettes a day also improved significantly from the previous year, by 8 percent. The levels of these measures in 2004 are the highest they have been since 1993.

Among 10th graders, perceived harmfulness of trying MDMA (ecstasy) once or twice increased by 4 percent, while perceived harmfulness of smoking one or more packs of cigarettes per day increased by 4 percent as well. While the increases from the previous year in all other measures of perceived harmfulness were not statistically significant, the 2004 levels are the highest they have been in recent years.

Among 12th graders, perceived harmfulness of taking heroin regularly declined by 3 percent, while perceived harmfulness of taking heroin occasionally without using a needle and taking one or two drinks nearly every day increased, by 4 percent and 14 percent, respectively. There were no other statistically significant changes in perceived harmfulness among 12th graders.

Among 8th graders, disapproval of people who try marijuana once or twice increased by 3 percent from the previous year, as did disapproval of people who smoke marijuana occasionally and those who take LSD regularly, increasing by 2 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

Among 10th graders, disapproval of people who smoke marijuana occasionally increased by 4 percent; those who smoke marijuana regularly increased by 3 percent, those who try inhalants regularly increased by 1 percent, and those who try MDMA once or twice increased by 3 percent.

As with perceptions of harm, the 2004 levels of disapproval are the highest they have been since 1993 (8th graders) and 1994 (10th graders).

Impact of Anti-Drug Advertising

Exposure to anti-drug advertising (of which, the Media Campaign is the major contributor) has had an impact on improving youth anti-drug attitudes and intentions. Among all three grades, such ads have made youth to a “great extent” or “very great extent” less favorable toward drugs and less likely to use them in the future over the course of the Media Campaign (i.e., since 1998). However, more than half of the increase in most of these outcomes among all three grades has occurred in the past three years. This is particularly striking among 10th graders, the primary target audience of the Media Campaign.

Source: ONDCP, USA, December 21, 2004.

The NDPA have encouraged many individual users to get into treatment for their addiction. In some cases they have had to ‘fight’ for funding to get into residential rehab – with a further fight to stay for secondary treatment, i.e. 24 weeks instead of 12. The best chance for long term drug dependent users is a minimum of 6 months residential rehab. We can guarantee that no users in a residential rehab would ever be rewarded with drugs.

Heroin and cocaine addicts on the government’s treatment programme are being given drugs as a reward for clean urine samples, the BBC has learned. The National Treatment Agency (NTA), which runs the £500m-a-year scheme, admits the practice is “unethical”. Its own survey of almost 200 clinics in England found users were being offered extra methadone, a heroin substitute, or anti-depressants for good behaviour. Health Minister Dawn Primarolo has asked for a report into the survey. She said the survey had raised “very serious issues”. She said, “It is unacceptable, unethical, it should not happen that prescription drugs and doses are used, or suggested that they should be used, as either incentives or withheld as sanctions as part of a treatment programme.”

Best principles

A third of clinics in the survey said users who produced a drug-free urine sample may be offered increased doses of heroin substitute as a reward – known as “contingency management”. A quarter admits that clients can choose the type of substitute drugs they want. The survey also found clinicians offering anti-depressants, cash vouchers or access to detox as a reward. The NTA said offering drugs for anything other than clinical need was wrong and it wanted certain practices “squeezed out of the system”.

The agency’s chief executive Paul Hayes told the BBC, “One of the things that’s important before we start rewarding people through things like contingency management is to make sure that we’re doing it according to the best principles for drug treatment.”

“There are a range of practices associated with drug misuse in this country that are not what we would want them to be.”  He said the NTA was set up to not only expand the provision of drug treatment, but also to improve its quality.

Very different

He added, “It is entirely appropriate to prescribe other drugs alongside prescription drugs that are to deal with withdrawal. Not as a reward, which is why we wouldn’t advocate it.”

“What we would say is the dose people get ought to be determined by the individual’s needs, not by whether or not they’re co-operating with the regime. That’s why the contingency management programme that we’re thinking of introducing, based on American research, is going to be very different to the ad hoc rewards that operate in not very well managed services in this country at the moment.”

Martin Barnes, chief executive of drug information charity DrugScope, said it was “appalling” to offer drugs as a reward. “It is a complete distortion of the principles of ‘contingency management’,” he said. “The practice is unethical, contrary to official guidance and creates potentially serious risks for the drug user.”

Matthew Taylor, of the Royal Society of Arts, a think tank looking at how best to get addicts off drugs, said an overhaul of current policies was needed.

General problem

“I think the reality is that our drug strategy just isn’t working,” he told BBC One’s Breakfast.

“Only a very small proportion of those people who are put through drug detoxification successfully complete the programme, and even when people do successfully complete the programme they revert to drug use very quickly.”

“So we need a different approach, and the fact that some people feel that they need to incentivise drug users with other drugs in order to keep them off illegal drugs is, I think, part of that general problem.”

Dr Michael Ross, former clinical director of Bradford’s drug dependency service, said drug addicts needed to be self-motivated to achieve results. “The idea of bribing the patient to achieve a result which wasn’t actually something they felt important is quite abhorrent.” he said.

The drugs treatment project is the centrepiece of government strategy. Only about 6% of users on the programme leave free of drugs each year. However, there is evidence that giving addicts access to services can reduce crime and improve health even if they continue to take drugs.

Source: Daily Dose. Oct. 18^th, 2007

Should drugs be legalized? Some people think so, like a recent article written by Ethan Nadelmann in Foreign Policy magazine. The Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, put forward his views on the topic to a meeting in New Orleans hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance. Here is a full text of the speech:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

From both sides of the aisle, there have been noises about my presence here. Is it right to invite this fellow, the so-called drug czar of the United Nations, to our annual conference?  Indeed, in some of the pro-legalization literature I am depicted as a die-hard prohibitionist, a drug control Taleban, a naive proponent of a drug free world, even a general in the war on drugs.

I have heard similar complaints from the opposite front: what is the point of the UNODC Executive Director joining the caucus of those who ask for the end of drug control, mixing with drug legalizers, the radical fringe of the pro-drug lobby, pressing for a world of free drugs that will never come?

I am glad that eventually we all decided that this exchange of views could be constructive, and help public opinion understand better a century-old drama: drug abuse, and the damage that it causes.

Is there some common ground between those who insist on a world free of drugs, and those who propose a world of free drugs? By the time this session is over, I hope we will all be able to answer in the affirmative. Here are a few pointers:

• First, health and security have to be protected when we talk about society, including when we talk about how society deals with drugs.
• Second, as a corollary, we can all agree on the need to reduce the harm caused by drugs — by preventing their use, by treating those who abuse them, and by limiting the damage they cause to the individual and society.
• Third, I hope we also agree on the need to ensure that drug policy is evidence-based, not the result of political considerations or ideological preferences.
• Fourth, I submit that the dichotomy prohibition vs legalization is a misnomer. Such a confrontation is too simplistic for scientific deliberations, nor does it help those whom we all wish to assist: our brothers and sisters, the drug addicts.
• Fifth, and finally, I hope you also agree that it is more accurate to refer to our divergence as a difference about the degree to which addictive substances (drugs, alcohol and tobacco) should be regulated. 

If these points are accepted, the discussion is to be centred on  where the bar is set , how to define the degrees of regulation. In other words, instead of accentuating our differences, I hope we build on the ground we share.

Let me begin with the world drug situation: where do we stand?

The world drug situation

In a recent article Ethan Nadelmann wrote: “it is dangerous when rhetoric drives policy”. I agree.  Res, not verba, [actions, not words] my ancestors the Romans, would have said. So let’s begin with the facts.

A growing body of evidence, including recent UNODC World Drug Reports, shows that the drug market has stabilized over time and space. [Opium in Afghanistan is mostly an insurgency issue (4/5 of the cultivation takes place in the areas controlled by the Taliban).]

On the basis of this evidence, I can state that, since a few years, for all drugs there are signs of world market stability (for opiates, cocaine, cannabis, and ATS). What I mean is that in every component of the drug business (cultivation, production, consumption), aggregate totals have lost the upward momentum they had in the 1980s and ’90s. Of course, world aggregates hide improvements in some countries and for some drugs, offset by deterioration elsewhere. Yet, the global totals are stable. This is what I like to call containment.

This finding refers to the past few years. Hopefully, in the period ahead evidence to support this claim – over the long term – will become statistically and logically incontrovertible.

Next question: how did this market change come about? Is this the result of the UNGASS process? I see correlations over time and space, but evidence of causality is hard to come by (social sciences are generally poor in proving cause/effect relations). Drug trends respond to a wide range of factors, especially changes in society’s revealed preferences. Yet for me, the result is what counts. If you have evidence to refute our data, I would like to see it.

Despite evidence of containment the world still has an enormous drug problem. There are some 25 million problem drug users. But let’s keep this in perspective – that’s less than 0.6% of the world’s population. Even if you take into account the number of people who take drugs at least once a year (approximately 200 million people), this is still below 5% of everyone on the planet.

By comparison, 50% of the world’s population uses alcohol, and 30% smoke. Alcohol, we know, kills 2.5 million people a year. More than half of all homicides and road-accidents, and most domestic violence, is alcohol-related. Tobacco kills 5 million people a year, because of cardio-vascular diseases and cancer — two of the greatest killers of our time.

What is my conclusion? There is growing public and medical pressure to tighten controls on the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes. That’s right. So why increase the public health damage caused by drugs by making them more freely available: drugs whose damage — thanks to the controls – is limited to 1/10th the casualties caused by tobacco? Why ignore the knowledge that we have gained from our experience with other addictive substances? 

If dreams come true…..

In order to show where I like to set the drug control bar, let me begin with the slogan so many of you have ridiculed:  a drug free world. Wait, wait: hold on to the tomatoes – I am not the author of this slogan. While in my life time I would certainly like to see a world without drugs, I have never used this slogan. Actually, you will not find it in any of my speeches, nor in any of the official United Nations documents, starting from the most relevant of them: the conventions (of 1961, 1971, and 1988) that created the UN drug control regime, and the General Assembly resolution about drugs (most notably from the UNGASS, 1998).

Yes, of course, several years ago (ie BC, before Costa) my Office put out posters with that slogan screaming across the page. While I never used this concept, personally I see nothing wrong with it. Is a drugs free world attainable? Probably not. Is it desirable? Most certainly, yes. Therefore I see this slogan as an aspirational goal, and not as an operational target – in the same way that we all aspire to eliminate poverty, hunger, illiteracy, diseases, even wars.

So let’s move on. I start with a series of (hypothetical) situations that I deem useful to set priorities in drug policy. I present them to you as dreams.

First, I invite you all to imagine that this year, all drugs produced and trafficked around the world, were seized: the dream of law enforcement agencies. Well, when we wake up having had this dream, we would realize that the same amount of drugs – hundreds of tons of heroin, cocaine and cannabis – would be produced again next year. In other words, this first dream shows that, while law enforcement is necessary for drug control, it is not sufficient. New supply would keep coming on stream, year after year.

So let’s dream a second time. Let’s dream that, by some miracle, we can convince farmers around the world to eradicate the thousands of hectares of drug crops, replaced by the fruits of development assistance (in Afghanistan, Colombia, Morocco, and Myanmar). A great dream of course, but yet again one that would not on its own solve the world drug problem. Why? Because when we wake up after this second dream we would realize that other sources of supply would inevitably open up somewhere else on the planet, to satisfy the craving of millions of drug users around the world.

So we come to a third dream which is the real challenge of drug policy: to reduce the demand for drugs. Prevention, treatment and reintegration, combined in a single health based programme, must be our priority. Of course the world’s supply of drugs needs to be reduced, but lower demand for drugs is the required condition to make drug policy realistic and pragmatic.

I hope you agree on this sequence, to separate the three elements of the drug chain, and their primary agents:  supply, by farmers in need of assistance;  trafficking, by criminals deserving retribution; and demand, by addicts in need of health care. At the UN, governments have captured this concept nicely in the expression shared responsibility.

Our Office focuses on the first and third part of this trilogy, namely the farmers and the drug users. Going after the traffickers is the role of law enforcement agencies. We help indirectly in this endeavour by promoting criminal justice and counter-narcotics cooperation. I take this opportunity to salute the work of counter-narcotics officials around the world whose important work is often carried out at the cost of their lives: please recognize that they deal with loathsome predators who exploit human vulnerability for the purposes of profit.

Health and Security  

With two building blocks of my argumentation in place (namely, stability of the world drug market and the priority of reducing drug demand), let me now turn to the issues of health and security.

Some people say that drug use is a personal and private choice – and nobody else’s business.

I have a few problems with this argument. First, there is a health issue. A growing body of scientific evidence shows that drug abuse is a disease affecting the brain, as much as any other neurological or psychiatric disorder. It is both triggered by vulnerability, and, in turn, deepens vulnerability. This has consequences both for the drug user and society as a whole. 

Second, if people don’t care about the dangers to themselves, what about the dangers that drugs cause to others: like road accidents or crimes committed by people under the influence of psycho-active substances, or the spread of blood borne diseases to others? The pharmacological effects of drugs are independent of their legal status. Drugs are not dangerous because they are illegal. They are illegal because they are dangerous. No wonder that public outcry against the collateral damage of drug use is building, just like successful campaigns against passive smoking or drunk driving. 

Third, drugs threaten security – not only public safety in inner-cities, but the security of states — think of Central America, the Caribbean and West Africa, caught in the cross-fire of drug trafficking.

I know your argument on this last point. Prohibition causes violence and crime by creating a lucrative black market for drugs: so, legalize drugs to defeat organized crime. Thus far, as an economist, I agree with you. But this is not only an economic argument. Legalization may reduce the profits to organized crime, but it will also increase the damage done to the health of individuals and society. Evidence shows a strong correlation between drug availability and drug abuse. Let us therefore reduce the availability of drugs – through tackling supply and demand – and thereby reduce the risks to health and security.  

In short, drug policy does not have to choose between either (i) protecting health, through drug control, or (ii) ensuring law-and-order, by liberalizing drugs. Democratic governments can and must protect both health and safety.

Besides, just because something is hard to control doesn’t mean that its legalization will solve the problem. For example, it is hard to stop human trafficking – a modern form of slavery. This is a multi-billion dollar business. Because the problem is out of control, would you equally propose that we accept it?

Let’s Not Condemn People to a Life of Addiction  

In order not to condemn people to a life of addiction, my Office is putting a strong emphasis on drug prevention and treatment. This goes back to the roots of drug control. The 1961 Convention on Narcotic Drugs is based on the premise that health is the first principle of drug control. This becomes more relevant every day as a growing body of medical and scientific evidence shows that drug addiction is an illness. So let’s treat it that way. There are no ideological debates about curing cancer or diabetes. So why have them about drug addiction? People to the left or right of the political spectrum are not divided on the need for preventing or treating tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. So why with drugs?

Scientific evidence has proven that drug dependence is a health and social issue, the result of nature and nurture. People are vulnerable to addiction because of a mix of genetic, personal and social factors: gene variants , namely genetic predisposition to addiction, childhood, pre-natal stress and inadequate parental care, neglect, abuse, low school engagement, lack of bonding, and social conditions , marginalization, exclusion, poverty, latent or overt psychiatric disorders as well as popular culture and peer pressure.

There is a double jeopardy at play here: not only are such people more vulnerable to addiction, but addiction deepens their vulnerability. As a result, the disadvantaged are pushed even further away from society.

If drugs were legalized, these people would be condemned to a life of dependence. The privileged can afford expensive treatment for their drug habits, or those of their kids. But what about the less fortunate who lack the same means and opportunities?

Now extrapolate the problem onto a global scale. Imagine the impact of unregulated drug use in developing countries where no prevention or treatment are available. This would unleash an epidemic of drug addiction and all the social and health consequences that go with it.

Instead of reducing harm, there would be increased damage to individuals and communities because of drugs. Will you share the responsibility for the overdoses, HIV, and broken lives?

Beyond 2008 

Ladies and gentlemen, if you really want to rethink drug policy, then help rebalance global drug control in favour of prevention and treatment. You are an outspoken Alliance. Be more radical. Go beyond handing out condoms, clean needles or a bowl of soup. Offer all drug addicts a comprehensive package that includes prevention, treatment and reintegration, not only harm reduction gadgets. Join me as an “extremist of the centre”. We have been hearing about a balanced approach for a quarter century. It’s time to turn it into reality.

If you want to shake things up, if you want to break the vicious circle of dependence and disadvantage, then:

Do not only:

- prevent the spread of diseases that precede and accompany drug use, like HIV and hepatitis.

This is a noble aim that we all share. But let us go further and:   

- devote more attention to prevention and early detection of drug vulnerability;

- reach out to people who need treatment, on a non-discriminatory basis;

- support the mainstreaming of drug therapy into high-quality and accessible public health and social services.

Let us also:

- promote alternative measures to prison for drug addicts, offering them rehabilitation programmes;

- treat all forms of addiction. There is no consolation for stabilizing drug trends if people turn instead to other substances; 

- finally, and most importantly, make drug control a society-wide issue.

Drug policies are too important to be left to drug experts like you and me, and to governments alone. It is a society-wide responsibility that requires society-wide engagement. This means working with children, starting from parents and teachers, to ensure that they develop self-esteem. Support family-based programmes, because prevention begins at home.

Schools teach life-skills. They should also teach the dangers of drugs. Help young people engage in healthy activities, like sports and culture, to prevent social isolation that leads to drugs and crime. Invest in better understanding, preventing and treating the illness of addiction.   People can be steered away from drugs. And those that do suffer the misery of addiction can be brought back into society. This is the true meaning of harm reduction which goes far beyond its usual narrow definition. My Office promotes this approach, together with the World Health Organization.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The strength of the international drug control system is its universality, with all governments solidly behind the United Nations drug conventions and strongly supportive of my Office. I hope I have won you over as well. If not, any change you would like to make to the existing drug control regime must be done by governments. You can influence the process. The review of UNGASS is a golden opportunity. We all want to help the poor farmers – to switch from crops to sustainable livelihoods. We all want to help the drug addicts – to save them from a life of misery. We all want to reduce the violence and crime associated with the drug economy.

So let’s build on this common ground to make a safer and healthier world.  Thank you for your attention.

Source:  Antonio Maria Costa. United Nations Office Drug Control. Dec. 7^th, 2007

Special Report

The young wrestler was sitting on the kitchen floor, his bloody face illuminated by the early-morning light that streamed through a nearby window. In other parts of the world, the shadow of the moon was edging across the rising sun, marking the beginning of a dramatic and well-publicized total eclipse. Will Hollingsworth had talked of little else for the past four days: the last eclipse of the millennium and the apocalypse some believed would follow. He had not slept in more than 100 hours, holed up in his room, paging restlessly through a Bible, his television tuned to news of the eclipse. It was a peculiar obsession for a 20-year-old college student who spent most of his time training to be a world-class athlete. Will didn’t appear intoxicated. To the contrary, he was alert, engaging and philosophical, though strangely fixated on current events.

Now this.

On any other day, he would have been out the door — running for miles along eastern Hillsborough County’s busiest roads, pumping iron at the gym, working out with his old high school wrestling team.

But on this August morning in 1999, there was only the inexplicable blood and the vacant stare that greeted me when I came to make breakfast. “What happened?” I asked my only son. “I’ve been fighting demons,” he replied.

Demons?

“It’s true,” he insisted, gesturing to his bloody face and filthy shirt. “I’ve been fighting demons all night. And I won.”

I followed his gaze through the window into the back yard. There, the torn sod and blood-stained patio marked the spot where he had pounded his face into the ground as his father and I slept, oblivious to the war we were about to wage with an invisible enemy. Will would battle his demons for the next three years. But he would never exorcise them. GHB already had laid claim to his sanity, and there was no one who could tell us how to retrieve it.

Dying To Win

Trinka Porrata is all too familiar with the phenomenon of young men who speak of mortal conflict with demons — men who pound their heads on concrete as they experience the unique and little-known psychosis that accompanies GHB withdrawal. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard about that,” said the retired Los Angeles narcotics detective. “Some of them try to put their heads through plate-glass windows.” Some succeed.

Porrata, founder of Project GHB, has spent seven years throwing a lifeline into cyberspace for addicts desperate to escape the grip of a nutritional supplement promoted as a safe, non-habit-forming sleep aid that claimed to build lean muscle mass. Most have been athletes or bodybuilders, but GHB use cuts across all demographics. “It’s the most unique drug,” she said. “We have a lot of senior citizens hooked on it thinking it’s antiaging. It’s big in the gay community, big in the gym scene, big in the club scene. Yet it’s invisible.”

Porrata said she has had more than 1,800 inquiries from GHB users and their family members since Project GHB went online in December 1999. “We were getting: ‘I thought I was the only person in the world with this problem,’” she said.

Before the debut of Project GHB, anyone looking for information on the chemical discovered a nest of Internet sites featuring glowing testimonials, mail-order supplies and recipes for cooking it at home. Central Florida, with its fitness culture, was a watershed for the craze during the 1990s, before GHB-related products were outlawed.

Tampa had its own cottage industry in the form of Body Life Sciences, a now-defunct company that produced and marketed the supplement under the brand names Revivarant and Revivarant G. GHB seemed to offer something for everyone, depending on the dosage: sedation, exhilaration, sexual stimulation, weight loss and the unsubstantiated promise of massive muscles. It was readily available at health food stores and gyms, where it entered the marketplace as an ostensibly safe, legal alternative to steroids.

In recent years, its ability to induce mild euphoria and amnesia attracted a new kind of customer who employed it as a party drug associated with overdoses and sexual assaults. GHB’s link to “date rapes” and all-night raves quickly overshadowed its widespread use in the athletic community. Yet it is the athletes and bodybuilders, who incorporate it into a daily regimen, who are most at risk of becoming addicted.

“It’s really the frequency of the dose as opposed to the amount of the dose that leads to this very striking psychosis,” said David Kershaw, a psychologist for Hillsborough County’s Mobile Crisis Unit. Kershaw has seen his share of GHB addicts in withdrawal — beginning in late 1999, when the county’s mental health center saw a rash of cases involving muscular young men suffering from hallucinations and paranoia.

One believed he had an invisible tape recorder fastened to his leg. Another saw a swarm of flies covering his body. All were regular users of GHB. “The irony is that despite the fact that they wouldn’t deliberately pollute their bodies like that, they get sucked into using it,” Kershaw said. “The people I see are all athletes, all concerned with being as healthy as they can be.”

One of them was Will.

The Runner Stumbles

Will’s descent into madness was swift and seemingly irreversible.

The first sign that something was amiss came one night in the spring of 1999, when he called to ask his father to come help him change a flat tire. It turned out the tire was flat because Will had drifted off an exit ramp on Interstate 75 and into a tree. Weeks later, another late-night call — this one from an ex-girlfriend, who said she had received an urgent message from Will asking her to pick him up at a gas station near the University of South Florida.

When she arrived, she found the car, with the engine still running, the driver’s door ajar, but no sign of Will. He turned up at another nearby gas station — incoherent, with no memory of how he got there. His father and I were mystified. Will seemed as bewildered as we were. “I keep making mistakes, and I don’t know why,” he said.

He never made the connection between the potion he bought at the local health food store and the bizarre things that happened when he stopped using it. We didn’t know he was using GHB. There were a lot of things we didn’t know.

The Will we knew was exceptionally bright, responsible, hardworking and honest. A good student, a loyal friend and — most striking — a gifted athlete with a passionate dream to be the best of the best — at something.

He was, at one time, the fastest boy in Hillsborough County — sprinting and jumping his way through a medley of track-and-field titles during his middle school years. There was a charisma about the sturdy blond boy whose blistering speed brought stadium crowds to their feet as he entered the homestretch.

When he earned a place on the Brandon High School wrestling team — one of the premiere prep athletic programs in the nation — he told a sports reporter what it meant to soar with the Eagles. “I feel there is no limit to where I can go,” he said in a 1997 newspaper interview. “It is a great team and I don’t think my life will ever be the same.”

Death And Detox

About the time the young wrestler was beginning to unravel in Florida, bodybuilder Mike Scarcella, a former Mr. America, was arrested in Texas, charged with felony possession with intent to distribute GHB.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had banned the supplement in 1990 but left loopholes that allowed its analogues — chemical cousins that turn into GHB after ingestion — to be sold for another decade. By all accounts, including his own, Scarcella had been using the supplement for years — first as a muscle-building nightcap, then as a morning pick-me-up. Eventually he was sipping capfuls throughout the day, a classic pattern among athletic users that can lead to physical dependence in a matter of weeks or months. Scarcella was hooked. His May 1999 arrest, which resulted in 10 years’ probation, was not enough to pry him from the grip of GHB.

The 1992 Mr. America continued to use and sell the drug, even as he tried to kick the habit — first on his own, then in hospitals, where doctors had no experience with the bizarre hallucinations and raging psychosis of GHB withdrawal.

Even with a doctor’s help, withdrawal can be deadly. Stroke, heart attack and suicide are among the consequences for addicts in withdrawal, which can start within one to three hours of a missed dose.

Anxiety, restlessness and insomnia can quickly progress to delirium, muscle tremors and delusions.

“They think they’re on fire. They’re moving, thrashing, screaming,” said Karen Miotto, a University of California-Los Angeles addiction psychiatrist who helped develop a GHB detox protocol. “I think GHB is probably harder to get addicted to than some other drugs,” she added. “But once people get addicted, it is far harder to get off than any drug I’ve seen.”

Scarcella’s battle ended in August 2003, when the 39-year-old bodybuilder was admitted to a Texas hospital feeling the first effects of GHB withdrawal. By the 10th day, he had become delusional and suffered what the medical examiner termed “sudden cardiac death.”

Doctors and psychiatrists have been slow to recognize GHB withdrawal. Most know little beyond its reputation as a date-rape or club drug with the potential to deliver a swift, deadly knockout punch. Emergency room physicians have become familiar with the unconscious overdose patients — generally youthful partiers — who are often treated and released.

But they rarely consider GHB use in the muscular, hallucinating patients who are delivered in four-point restraints. “ER doctors don’t really know what to look for,” Kershaw said. Most physicians and mental health professionals also fail to recognize the early stages of withdrawal, when careful detoxification using the right medications might head off a spiral into psychosis. “It really means that the only time they’re going to get help is when they’ve reached the state of hallucinating,” said San Francisco addiction specialist Alex Stalcup. By then, their condition may be far less treatable.
“It’s just heartbreaking.”

Jesus’ Son

The angels appeared in September 1999, shortly after the eclipse that marked the end of life as we knew it.
These were not benevolent guardians, but mute, shadowy creatures only Will could see. What was their purpose? I asked him. “They’re here to watch us,” he said. Not as protectors but observers. They were neither dangerous nor benign. They just WERE, he said. Six weeks had passed since the morning of Will’s bloody battle with the backyard demons.

His father and I had spent the first week taking turns staying home from work with him as he slept round-the-clock, sedated by a physician.

The sleep deprivation that preceded the incident was enough to cause hallucinations, according to a psychologist friend. Perhaps sleep would bring him out of it, she suggested. We knew by this time that GHB had played some role. Will had acknowledged taking the supplement in the week before the eclipse. But he had stopped about three days before, he insisted. When Will finally woke up by week’s end, the crisis seemed to have passed.

He returned to his part-time job as a waiter at a Brandon restaurant and began his junior year at USF. With his sights set on the Olympics since high school, he resumed his regular workouts — and, according to his off-campus roommates, resumed his GHB use. “It takes you to a place you never want to come back from,” Will said.

On Labor Day, he was back home, reading the Bible around the clock. He stopped attending classes, didn’t report for work and did not return to the apartment he shared with three other students. He had stopped taking GHB.
He also had ceased his workouts and stopped eating. He claimed he was going to fast for two weeks — “like Jesus.”

Once again, his father and I took turns working from home, watching, waiting. He was, by law, an adult and could not be forced into an evaluation unless he proved to be a danger to himself or others. He didn’t meet that criterion — not yet. His father took his car keys, just in case. Sept. 17, 1999. It was my turn to watch over Will.

I worked on a news story from my laptop on the dining room table, just outside his bedroom. Each time I checked on him, he was sitting on his couch, reading his Bible. He had not eaten since Sept. 6. Shortly before 6 p.m., Will wandered out of his room and pulled up a chair across from me. My fingers froze on the keyboard as I met his gaze. “What are you working on?” he asked. I knew he couldn’t possibly be interested, but it was the first time in weeks he had made any effort to engage in conversation. I began to explain the story I was writing. Then I saw it, so plainly that for a moment I thought I was the one losing touch with reality.

Will’s gray-green eyes, the windows to his troubled soul, suddenly transformed into black pools of blazing madness. And for the first time, I understood the concept of possession. I was still answering his question when he cut me off in midsentence. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, do you?” hissed the suddenly dark, dangerous creature.

“No,” I replied, cautiously. “Who AM I dealing with?” He rose from his chair and took a step toward me, his fist clenched, his face contorted with rage. “I am the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want my car keys.” I glanced at the clock. His father was due home any time now.

Will’s lips smiled, but his eyes still glittered with that dark madness. “He’s not going to save you,” he said, as though he had read my mind. The phone rang. Will answered. “Yeah, Dad. She’s right here,” he said, handing me the phone, still smiling that frightening smile. Whatever I had seen in Will’s eyes, his father heard in his voice. “Can you talk?” he asked me. “No.”

“Something is wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Get out of the house,” Will’s father told me. “Get out NOW.” Clearly the time for watching and waiting was over. His father dialed 9-1-1.

That night, the angels made their first appearance as Kershaw and his mobile crisis unit came to commit Will for 72 hours of psychiatric observation under Florida’s Baker Act — the first of nearly a dozen hospitalizations over the next 30 months. It wasn’t a tough call. Will was in “florid psychosis” and claimed alternately to be God, Jesus and Jesus’ son.

Then there were the angels, who would, in time, become Will’s constant companions. Kershaw was among the few professionals we encountered over three years who took serious note when we told him of the GHB link.

“Will’s case prompted me to educate myself on this,” he said. “If I have someone who’s got psychotic symptoms, and they’ve got a history of being a fairly well-functioning athlete with no history of mental illness, one of the first things I think of now is GHB.”

Spontaneous Combustion

GHB was the last thing David Johnson thought of as he searched the Internet for information about “Enliven,” a supplement his 28-year-old son, Tyler, purchased at a health food store near his home in Beebe, Ark.

Tyler, who had graduated weeks before from the University of Arkansas, became restless and “fidgety” on the night of July 15, 2000. His pulse raced, and he began to say things that didn’t make sense, Johnson said. Unknown to Johnson, the young bodybuilder had been taking Enliven for about a year. Now, engaged to be married and about to begin law school, Tyler had decided to stop taking it. That night, he showed his father a bottle of the supplement, labeled as a “100% Pure Cellular Recovery System” that “Renews the Body Naturally.”

What it didn’t say was the active ingredient — 1,4 butanediol, better known as BD — is a solvent that converts into GHB once ingested.

GETTING OFF ‘G’

Withdrawal from GHB is among the most prolonged and severe of any drug and should not be undertaken without medical supervision.

Cardiovascular distress is significant, posing the risk of stroke or heart attack. Spikes in blood pressure from repeated bouts of withdrawal can result in arterial damage and an enlarged heart. Withdrawal grows more severe with each subsequent attempt, “kindling” the nervous system to the point of inducing delirium or seizures.

Patients treated before they reach this stage stand a better chance of successful recovery. Detox begun in early stages of withdrawal, with onset of restlessness and anxiety, works best. Detox generally takes at least two weeks, often requiring heavy doses of sedatives, accompanied by monitoring of blood oxygen levels. David Johnson didn’t know it, but Tyler was in GHB withdrawal.

“I wanted to take him to the hospital, but he told me he was all right and he went to bed,” Johnson said.

The next morning, shortly after dawn, a neighbor discovered Tyler’s body on the Johnsons’ front lawn. He had shot himself in the head. Suicide is an all-too-common outcome in cases of GHB addiction, though the true numbers will never be known. Porrata has seen it over and over.

“It’s like spontaneous combustion, not like they pondered it. They just shoot themselves in the head,” she said.
Detox from GHB can take at least two weeks.

“I think one of the most dangerous periods is after detox, where they are suffering depression, anxiety, and it becomes this protracted withdrawal state,” Miotto said. GHB anxiety is malignant — the frightening dreams at night, the terror during the day as the central nervous system tries to deal with the legacy of a little-understood chemical assault on the brain, Stalcup said. “If I had to go through what I see people going through, I don’t know if I could do it,” he said.

Perhaps the harshest irony, Porrata said, is the people who become addicted to GHB in the pursuit of health and fitness and end up turning to street drugs to counter the effects of withdrawal. Black-market Xanax, Valium and similar drugs tend to be the ones of choice. Alcohol, cocaine, Ecstasy and even crystal methamphetamine aren’t far behind.

Of Dreams And Nightmares

In the weeks and months that followed Will’s first Baker Act, life took on a rhythm of sorts — but not the sort we envisioned.

By day, Will continued to run, lift weights, wrestle and pursue his athletic dreams. By night, he battled the demons that invaded his sleep. The boy who once was a designated driver for friends retreated to his room, alone, to drown the delusions in rum and vodka.His circle of friends shifted from students and athletes to dropouts and drug dealers who could ensure a steady supply of sedatives and anything else that might quiet the voices and visions.

I purchased a dreamcatcher and hung it beside his bed, hoping the mystical Indian legend would offer some comfort.

But nothing could banish the nightmarish images that appeared when he closed his eyes. “You can’t imagine what is happening in the world,” he told me. “Yes, I can.” I had to look no further than the gaping hole in his soul.

Laced with antipsychotics prescribed by his doctors, supplemented by a pharmacopia of his own invention, Will struggled to hold down a job and tried, unsuccessfully, to complete his junior year.

He teetered for months on the brink of madness, alternately stabilizing, then disintegrating into a series of forced hospital stays. We didn’t know whether he continued to use GHB or whether the drug had permanently rewired his brain.

“With Will, when I saw him again and again, I wasn’t sure if the GHB had triggered more of a chronic process with him,” Kershaw said. Each time Will was committed, we asked the nurses and doctors to flag his chart to reflect his GHB use — a request that often was received with blank stares and dismissive waves. Will continued to slip from our grasp, trapped in a world inhabited by demons and angels, a world defined by the absence of light or joy.

We wondered how long he could survive in such a dark and hopeless place. It didn’t help that he had come to believe he possessed the gift of prophesy and claimed to have seen his own death many times. He wouldn’t tell us when this was to occur. All he would say was that it involved fire.

Drowning In Cases

In the beginning, the addicts who flocked to Project GHB for help tended to be young men in their late teens and early 20s. Today, Porrata is seeing older men who have been using for five to 10 years. Most are 30 to 55 years old.
“It’s not the party kids,” she said. “It’s the man in midlife crisis who starts going to the gym and wants to lose a few pounds, look a little better, rekindle things — and someone introduces him to ‘G.’”

But still it is the athletes who concern her the most. “Any place you see steroids, GHB is right in the shadows,” she said. “The sports world won’t admit this drug. It’s like their secret drug, and they won’t give it up.”

Unlike steroids, there is no evidence GHB enhances physique or performance. Still, users subscribe to the myth.

“What makes GHB so attractive to athletes is it’s very difficult to detect. They pass all the routine urine drug screens that you do,” said Tampa addiction specialist David Myers.

One of Myers’ patients — a Major League Baseball player — sipped GHB from a small mouthwash bottle during his games. He told Myers and his team managers that GHB use was widespread in pro sports, including among his teammates.

“He relapsed,” Myers said. “There was no support from team management, and it was clear they were not interested in tackling GHB issues.”

There is some speculation that stepped-up enforcement has limited the drug’s availability. But despite a major Drug Enforcement Administration sting that netted 115 Internet distributors in 84 North American cities in 2002, followed by a $7 million bust this year in Scotland, there is plenty of GHB to go around. With Project GHB and other Internet sources supplying information that wasn’t available to addicts six years ago, many users are taking matters into their own hands, Porrata said. “They’ll die from other drugs,” she said. “And we’ve had so many suicides — so many.”

The Three Demons

Will’s final Baker Act took place Jan. 18, 2002. His slide into psychosis began as it always did: He stopped eating.

This time he said he planned to fast until Easter. When he entered Memorial Hospital’s psychiatric unit that day, he had been fasting for two weeks and had lost nearly 30 pounds. A public defender assigned to Will’s case blocked every effort to give him intravenous fluids and nutrients. If he wanted to starve himself, it wasn’t our business, or his doctor’s, she said. By February, Will was still fasting and began walking into walls. He fell and hit his head.

Then something remarkable happened: After three years of inexplicable madness, someone finally decided to take a look at Will’s brain. A nurse requested a CT scan. It was then that we finally met his demons. There were three of them: inoperable brain lesions whose nature and origin doctor’s couldn’t even guess at. Will was transferred to the medical floor, and for the first time in nearly two months, he received IV fluids and nutrients. Too late.

The neurological collapse began with involuntary flickering of his eyelids, which grew more pronounced each day. His hearing began to fail. He started to lose the use of the right side of his body. Still he would not eat. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be fine.” “All you have to do is start eating, and they’ll let you out of here,” I pleaded. “Isn’t there someplace you’d rather be?” “Heaven,” he said. On Easter, Will broke his fast with a Cadbury egg. He was transferred to a physical therapy unit, then sent home.

The brain scan was sent to Johns Hopkins University in an attempt to identify the lesions. The young wrestler, once the fastest boy in Hillsborough County, could not get from the bedroom to the bathroom without a walker. His balance was gone, his hearing severely impaired. And his flickering eyes couldn’t focus on a television screen, much less a Bible.
But he could kneel, and he could pray. And that is what Will did each day. “Everything will be fine,” he kept saying. “I’ve seen the future, and I’ll be wrestling.”

One of the saddest things about GHB, Miotto said, is the way the drug affects the mind. “They don’t grasp the level of their impairment,” she said. But the saddest thing about Will’s experience was his ability to grasp just that.

Despite his irretrievably broken mind, he knew what he had lost. He knew it all along. Will had always felt a particular affinity for the homeless. In the years he struggled with GHB psychosis, he actively sought them out to give them money as they picked through garbage bins. “That could be me someday,” he said. Despite his intermittent delusions of grandeur, his goals were humble. “What do you want from life?” I asked him shortly before that last Baker Act.

“I just want to be able to take care of myself,” he said. “To drive a car. To have a place of my own.”
Weeks after Will’s release from the hospital, his doctor evaluated him. He checked his eyes, his ears, his balance. This, he told him, was as good as it was going to get. As for the three still-unidentified brain lesions — things could get worse, he added.

Four days later, on June 3, 2002, my son took a gas can from the garage to the back yard. He doused himself and lit a match. A young man approached me after the memorial service. He said his name was Brandon and that Will had persuaded him to seek treatment for cocaine addiction.

“I’m two years clean and sober now,” he said. “Will saved my life, and I just wanted you to know.”

Source: Researcher Mike Messano contributed to this project. Reporter Jan Hollingsworth can be reached at (813) 865-4436 or jhollingsworth@tampatrib.com.

PRODUCT NAMES

Blue Nitro
Renewtrient
Revivarant
Remforce
Firewater
Enliven
Serenity
Revitalize Plus
Thunder Nectar
Rejoov
Flower Power
Dream On
Weight Belt Cleaner

By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH The Tampa Tribune
Published: Nov. 12, 2006

Source: Project GHB

Admiral Regina M. Benjamin, released a new report that shows that tobacco smoke, even occasional smoking or secondhand smoke, damages the human body and leads to disease and death.

The 700-page report, “A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease-The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking,” finds that cellular damage and tissue inflammation from tobacco smoke are immediate, and that repeated exposure weakens the body’s ability to heal the damage.

Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can cause cardiovascular disease and could trigger acute cardiac events, such as heart attack. The report describes how chemicals from tobacco smoke quickly damage blood vessels and make blood more likely to clot. The evidence in this report shows how smoking causes cardiovascular disease and increases risks for heart attack, stroke, and aortic aneurysm.

The report also explains why it is so difficult to quit smoking. According to the research, cigarettes are designed for addiction. The design and contents of current tobacco products make them more attractive and addictive than ever before. Today’s cigarettes deliver nicotine more quickly and efficiently than cigarettes of many years ago.

You can read the full report at www.surgeongeneral.gov. Last week, CADCA hosted a webinar on tobacco cessation and smoking prevention. A recording of this session, as well as the PowerPoint presentations used during the session, can be accessed online.

Source: www.cadca.org Dec. 2010

R. Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, this week called attention to the high percentage of fatalities on USA roadways involving drivers who had drugs in their system and called on communities to continue to prevent drug use before it starts. Kerlikowske’s announcement was shared in light of a new traffic fatality analysis released by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

According to the inaugural analysis of drug involvement from NHTSA’s Fatal Accident Reporting System census, one in three motor vehicle fatalities (33 percent) with known drug test results tested positive for drugs in 2009. Additionally, according to the new analysis, the involvement of drugs in fatal crashes has increased by five percent over the past five years, even as the overall number of drivers killed in motor vehicle crashes in the United States has declined.

Kerlikowske said campaigns against drunk driving have been effective and should continue, but more emphasis should be placed on ‘drugged driving.’

In a news release, Kerlikowske said, “It is critical that communities across the nation address the threat of drugged driving as we redouble our efforts to make America’s roadways safer by increasing public awareness, employing more targeted enforcement, and developing better tools to detect the presence of drugs among drivers.”

According to a 2007 NHTSA Roadside Survey of Alcohol and Drug Use by Drivers, 1 in 8 nighttime weekend drivers tested positive for an illicit drug. The most recent Monitoring the Future survey revealed that one in 10 high school seniors reported that in the two weeks prior to the survey they had driven after smoking marijuana.

Source: www.CADCA.org Dec.2010

Support for legalising cannabis has dropped from more than a third of people in Scotland to less than a quarter, a study has suggested.
However, most people made a distinction between cannabis and other drugs.
The findings come in a Scottish government study into the public’s attitudes towards illegal drugs and drug misuse.
It showed 47% of people knew someone who had tried illegal drugs, up from 41% between 2001 and 2009.
Statistics from the British Social Attitudes Surveys in the 1980s and 1990s, along with the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2001, indicated an increasingly tolerant attitude towards the legalisation of cannabis.
The results from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2009 have now suggested a reverse in this trend.
Mental health
Support for legalising cannabis fell from 37% in Scotland in 2001 to 24% in 2009. Among those who had themselves tried cannabis, support for its legalisation fell from 70% to 47% over the same period.
The views were accompanied by a hardening of attitudes towards prosecution for the possession of cannabis.
The report found the trend may be linked to the mental health debate surrounding new stronger forms of cannabis, called skunk, or it may reflect a changing trend in attitudes towards illegal drugs in general.
In 2008 the government introduced a new strategy to tackle the nation’s drug problems by focusing on “recovery and helping people live drug-free lives”.
In principle this appeared to be supported by the Scottish public, with 80% saying “the only real way of helping drug addicts is to get them to stop using drugs altogether”.
How this should be done was not so clear, the report found.
There was widespread support for enforcement, with only 16% of people agreeing that personal use of heroin should not result in prosecution.
Although education was generally supported as the focus of drugs policy, only 44% of people believed this “education” should involve young people being given more information on how to use drugs more safely.
The survey also indicated that communities with higher signs of heroin use were more likely to be comfortable living near a recovering heroin user. This may mean that actual contact with such issues helps to allay public anxiety, it suggested.

Source: www.news.bbc.co.uk 25th May 2010

Over the past ten days, 40 reports were received by the National Poisons Information Centre regarding persons suffering severe adverse reactions attributed to using a new head shop substance “WHACK”.
The majority of these individuals are young males in their twenties. They live in different parts of Ireland with 20 presenting in the mid-Western region. They have suffered a range of symptoms including increased heart and breathing rates and raised blood pressure. Emergency Physicians and GPs have described that the majority suffered from differing levels of anxiety with at least 7 cases experiencing psychotic episodes. This psychosis is severe and is proving difficult to treat.

The National Poisons Information Centre, the Forensic Science Laboratory, the Irish Medicines Board and others are monitoring closely the emergence of any new psychoactive substances.

On the 11th May 2010, the Government brought in new legislation. This legislation has brought under control approximately 200 individual substances and covers the vast majority of products of public health concern, which were on sale in head shops.

In addition to the recent controls on legal highs introduced by the Minister for Health and Children, the Minister for Justice and Law Reform is bringing forward the Criminal Justice (Psychoactive Substances) Bill 2010 which aims to ensure that the sale or supply of substances which may not be specifically proscribed under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but which have psychoactive effects, will be a criminal offence.

The advice from the HSE is not to try this dangerous drug or other similar substances as the effect on an individual can impact significantly on one’s health.

Source: HSE Press & Media, Dr Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin 8, 09/06/2010

Support for legalising cannabis has dropped from more than a third of people in Scotland to less than a quarter, a study has suggested.
However, most people made a distinction between cannabis and other drugs.
The findings come in a Scottish government study into the public’s attitudes towards illegal drugs and drug misuse.
It showed 47% of people knew someone who had tried illegal drugs, up from 41% between 2001 and 2009.
Statistics from the British Social Attitudes Surveys in the 1980s and 1990s, along with the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2001, indicated an increasingly tolerant attitude towards the legalisation of cannabis.
The results from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2009 have now suggested a reverse in this trend.
Mental health
Support for legalising cannabis fell from 37% in Scotland in 2001 to 24% in 2009. Among those who had themselves tried cannabis, support for its legalisation fell from 70% to 47% over the same period.
The views were accompanied by a hardening of attitudes towards prosecution for the possession of cannabis.
The report found the trend may be linked to the mental health debate surrounding new stronger forms of cannabis, called skunk, or it may reflect a changing trend in attitudes towards illegal drugs in general.
In 2008 the government introduced a new strategy to tackle the nation’s drug problems by focusing on “recovery and helping people live drug-free lives”.
In principle this appeared to be supported by the Scottish public, with 80% saying “the only real way of helping drug addicts is to get them to stop using drugs altogether”.
How this should be done was not so clear, the report found.
There was widespread support for enforcement, with only 16% of people agreeing that personal use of heroin should not result in prosecution.
Although education was generally supported as the focus of drugs policy, only 44% of people believed this “education” should involve young people being given more information on how to use drugs more safely.
The survey also indicated that communities with higher signs of heroin use were more likely to be comfortable living near a recovering heroin user. This may mean that actual contact with such issues helps to allay public anxiety, it suggested.

Source: www.news.bbc.co.uk 25th May 2010

Over the past ten days, 40 reports were received by the National Poisons Information Centre regarding persons suffering severe adverse reactions attributed to using a new head shop substance “WHACK”.
The majority of these individuals are young males in their twenties. They live in different parts of Ireland with 20 presenting in the mid-Western region. They have suffered a range of symptoms including increased heart and breathing rates and raised blood pressure. Emergency Physicians and GPs have described that the majority suffered from differing levels of anxiety with at least 7 cases experiencing psychotic episodes. This psychosis is severe and is proving difficult to treat.

The National Poisons Information Centre, the Forensic Science Laboratory, the Irish Medicines Board and others are monitoring closely the emergence of any new psychoactive substances.

On the 11th May 2010, the Government brought in new legislation. This legislation has brought under control approximately 200 individual substances and covers the vast majority of products of public health concern, which were on sale in head shops.

In addition to the recent controls on legal highs introduced by the Minister for Health and Children, the Minister for Justice and Law Reform is bringing forward the Criminal Justice (Psychoactive Substances) Bill 2010 which aims to ensure that the sale or supply of substances which may not be specifically proscribed under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but which have psychoactive effects, will be a criminal offence.

The advice from the HSE is not to try this dangerous drug or other similar substances as the effect on an individual can impact significantly on one’s health.

Source: HSE Press & Media, Dr Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin 8, 09/06/2010

A British “legal drugs” manufacturer based in Belgium has told Sky News the UK is about to be flooded with a deadly new drug called naphyrone.
Dave Llewellyn, who admits supplying large quantities of mephedrone to customers in the UK, said the new chemical is so dangerous he was refusing to sell it on his website – although it would not be against the law.
“This stuff is absolutely evil – it’s going to cause all sorts of psychological problems,” he told Sky News. “It will cause long-term brain damage from the very first hit and eventually it’s going to end up with bodies.”
Naphyrone is already being marketed as a mephedrone replacement, but according to Mr Llewellyn it is far more toxic than many illegal drugs like cocaine and ecstasy.
The substance is sold online under the name NRG-1 and costs as little as 25 pence a hit.  We know a little about its chemistry. We know it’s a variant of other substances both legal and illegal that can cause psychological and physical harm.   Dr Ken Checinski, from charity Addaction
The fact it is so cheap means, according to Mr Llewellyn, that it is likely to become hugely popular with youngsters.  “I think it really could be Europe’s crystal meth. I can see an epidemic where people are getting into it without realising what they’re getting into and then having to go back for more.”
For the moment naphyrone is not widely available in the UK, but its presence is a concern for many established scientists.  Medical director of the charity Addaction Dr Ken Checinski has warned those considering taking the designer drug to think again.
“We know a little about its chemistry. We know it’s a variant of other substances both legal and illegal that can cause psychological and physical harm,” he said.   The Government is currently trying to outlaw mephedrone – but naphyrone is likely to escape the ban for the moment.
Dave Llewellyn says naphyrone ‘could be Europe’s crystal meth’  Mephedrone has been linked to the deaths of a number of people across Europe.  Mr Llewellyn says the UK’s lucrative legal drugs market, which is worth hundreds of millions of pounds every year, is being targeted by dealers based in the Far East.
“The Chinese have been getting this ready for the last six months to take over the moment mephedrone is banned.
“It has been ready but why have two things banned at the same time – they want to keep their factories churning over these chemicals.”
Naphyrone will present legislators with another headache.   It is also likely to reignite the debate about how best to deal with the wave of new legal synthetic drugs which continue to hit the market, despite the ban of previous substances.
Source:  http://news.sky.com  1st April 2010

Crime, drugs and alcohol abuse cost taxpayers in just three regions £1.5billion a year, according to official reports.
Councils in Birmingham, Luton and Leicestershire have calculated the price of social breakdown in terms of police and court time, health services, welfare benefits and support for families.   In one area, the cost of binge-drinking on hospitals and the criminal justice system was put at £713million a year, while addicts used up another £500m in public sector resources.
 The figures have been uncovered by the Conservatives in pilot projects commissioned by the Government but not published centrally.
Caroline Spelman, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said: “It is no surprise that Labour ministers have tried to bury this bad news.   “Across the country, local taxpayers are footing the bill for Labour’s broken society. The costs of social breakdown, alcohol abuse, poor schooling and drug addiction are just not confined to deprived areas – we all pay for it in our council tax bills and pay packets.
“There is no excuse for the secrecy of Labour ministers – they must come clean and publish all these reports in full.”
The 13 pilot studies were commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government a year ago in a £5m project known as Total Place. The idea was that public sector organisations in any given area could save money and improve services by improving co-operation and reducing duplication.
Earlier this month Liam Byrne, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, told MPs that it was up to local authorities whether they wanted to publish their reports or not, and he declined to put copies of each study in the Commons library.   But the Tories have found the results of three Total Place studies, covering Birmingham; Luton and Central Bedfordshire; and Leicestershire.
The Birmingham report found that gang-related murders and attempted murders are costing the city’s taxpayers at least £1.5m a year in police, court and prison costs.  It puts the cost of the activities of “10 major dynastic gang families” at £187.5m over the past 40 years. Birmingham’s two main gangs, the Johnson Crew and the Burger Bar Boys, are each said to include three generations of five families. Their rivalry led to the fatal shooting of two teenage girls, Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis, at a New Year party in 2003.
In Luton and Central Bedfordshire, a hard core of 250 criminals is blamed for a quarter of all offences, costing taxpayers up to £112m a year.
The Birmingham report puts the cost of alcohol misuse – including public disorder, workplace sickness and health services – at £713m a year. Drug misuse is said to cost £500m in terms of treatment, mental health care, benefits payments and police time.
Leicestershire estimated that drinking costs the NHS, police, workplaces and social services £120m a year.
Source:  Telegraph.co.uk  24th March 2010

THE number of children being treated for booze problems nearly DOUBLED in three years, The Sun can reveal.
A staggering 8,799 under-18s – including some of PRIMARY school age – were treated for misusing alcohol in the 12 months to April last year.
This was a shocking 80.1 per cent rise on the year to April 2006, when just 4,886 received help.
And figures released to The Sun under the Freedom of Information Act show 67 kids aged just 11 or younger were treated for alcohol problems in 2008-09. More than half of those referred or treated during the year were either 16 or 17.
The regions with the biggest child booze problems were the North West, where 1,760 kids received help, and the South East, where 1,148 were treated.
Another 872 kids from London received help for alcohol problems.
The sharp rise has come since the introduction of 24-hour drinking in November 2005. The figures, released by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, show another 7,248 under-18s referred to them with drug problems also had trouble with drink.
Earlier this month, The Sun reported that three kids under 10 are being treated in hospital for drug abuse every day.
Source  www.thesun.co.uk  22nd March 2010

Comment:
Amid all the talk about what to do about this particular nasty drug-no one in politics or the media is addressing the fundamental question. How did the UK get to have this terrible drug using culture? Did influential legalisation and liberalisation drug lobbyists adversely affect the drug use culture? Was “media advocacy” a big factor? Where some pro liberalisation/legalisation Members of Parliament (in all political parties) guilty of proselytising without working out the inevitable consequences? Are those members of the “great & (supposedly ) good” , (even some members of the Police & Judiciary), who advocated drug legalisation/liberalisation, also guilty parties? It has been said nations get the drug problem they deserve. We certainly deserve ours. It is surely time for some honesty a rethink and some more competent political leadership.
David Raynes  National Drug Prevention Alliance
*****************************************************
Desperate father pleads for action as legal party drug destroys his teenage son An accountant has made a dramatic nationwide plea for help to stop his son killing himself with the new party drug known as Miaow Miaow.
 
Stephen Welch, rang BBC Radio 4′s Today programme in desperation because he did not know how to stop his son Daniel’s addiction to mephedrone and his appeals for specialist support had been rejected.
The 58-year-old spelt out the reality of life with a teenager who is destroying his health with a legal substance.

And he revealed that the drug can be bought freely over the phone on an 0800 number “like a Chinese takeaway” and delivered in 15 minutes at a cost of less than £1 a hit.  He also revealed that many of his son’s friends in the affluent, medieval market town of Saffron Walden, were also dependent on mephedrone and experiencing physical and mental problems as a result.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Welch, a self-employed accountant, described how last week, Daniel collapsed in front of him after a heavy weekend taking the killer drug.  “He had heart pains, his blood pressure was all over the place, his body went numb,” said Mr Welch. “Then he went into a bout of intense depression and suicidal tendencies. We were very, very scared.  “We thought that maybe we were going to loose him. It was a terrifying situation.”

The close-knit Welch family is desperate for help but have been told by mental health experts that their son’s drug taking is a “lifestyle choice” which they can do little about.  “The said they were not able to offer us any assistance, apart from saying, if necessary, take him to accident and emergency,” said Mr Welch, 58. “There has been an offer of acupuncture sessions but no mention of rehabilitation or even counselling.”

Evidence is growing of a mephedrone epidemic among young people across the social range. A survey published yesterday revealed that more than one in 13 students who attend Cambridge University have tried the drug.

Last week, it was linked to the deaths of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, in Scunthorpe. Police have also confirmed that a partygoer’s death from a heart attack in February was caused by mephedrone poisoning.   Despite escalating fears, the Government has taken no action to ban the drug. The substance is actively marketed on dozens of websites as plant food, with the companies and individuals who sell it making millions of pounds unhindered by the authorities.

“It is like ordering a Chinese takeaway but it comes quicker and is cheaper,” said Mr Welch. “The teenagers ring the 0800 number and it is delivered in little packets that say ‘plant food, not for human consumption’.  “Four grams costs £35 and is enough to give two hits to 20 people, that is under £1 a hit. Four grams of cocaine costs about £200.

“All of his friends are taking it, including some who wouldn’t have touched any drugs before but take this one because it is legal.  “They are all having the same problems. They are all, within a very short space of time, becoming dependant on it.”

Before discovering the drug, Daniel had completed his GCSEs at a private Quaker school and was studying a vocational course at a college near Norwich.  But the effects of his habit have left the teenager muddled, depressed and unable to work. While he has tried other drugs and has used cannabis regularly, the high he experienced with mephedrone was in a different league.  Mr Welch, whose three other children have never had drugs issues, said the availability of the drug made it so much harder to protect Daniel and break his dependency.

“It needs to be banned, if only to make it more difficult to get hold of,” he said. “I’m not naive enough to think it will not still be there.  It will go underground but it will become more expensive and it will put some children off taking it if it is illegal.  “It is no good the Government saying ‘we need to wait for this committee or that report’. People are dying from this substance.

“We have had a terrifying experience with our own son. People are making a fortune out of supplying this stuff and it is causing absolute havoc with our children.”  Meanwhile, until the Government acts, the Welch family try to cope with the day-to-day consequences of Daniel’s addiction.

“My wife is affected the most as she is at home most. It is emotionally just draining,” said Mr Welch. “We are absolutely distraught by this.
“The possibilities are too horrendous to think about – those two poor boys in Scunthorpe who died. My son said ‘I looked at their pictures and they looked like normal kids’. I said to him ‘Daniel, you look like a normal kid’.

“He has been very frightened by what has happened this week. We can only support him and hope that he is coming around to realising what a lethal substance this is.” Daniel said that the public and Government officials did not realise how bad the situation had become with mephedrone.  “I want to get across the massive effect it has had on my life and on the lives of people similar to me,” said the teenager.
“Something needs to happen. People are doing the drug who would never think of doing illegal drugs. It is affecting normal people.  “It is so readily available, a phone call away. And it is so cheap that someone always has it. You can swap a cigarette for a line. And that makes it hard to break away from it.

“I’ve got a lot of big decisions to make now about who I see and who I don’t. The problem is these are normal friends, people at university.
“But if I carry on in the way I have been I could be dead in three months. I’m losing weight, I’m not the person I was.”
Source:  www.telegraph.co.uk/health  21st March 2010

More than 5,000 school girls in England under the age of 16 needed hospital treatment last year as a result of alcohol abuse, new figures show.
The number, which includes girls as young as 10, has risen by 21 per cent in the last five years, according to statistics released by Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo.
The scale of Britain’s binge-drinking culture among young women was also highlighted.
In 2007/08, just over 13,000 teenagers and young women between 17 and 21 were admitted to hospital for problems caused by alcohol, up almost 50 per cent from 2003/04.   A similarly dramatic increase was seen among older women – those aged 26 or over – with almost 300,000 needing hospital treatment compared to just 196,625 five years earlier.
The figures, which emerged in response to a parliamentary question by Labour MP for Northampton North Sally Keeble, include treatment for conditions ranging from upset stomach to mental or behavioural problems triggered by too much drinking. The new figures follow a report that showed British youths are among the worst in Europe for binge drinking.
A poll by the University of the West of England showed more than half of 15 and 16-year-old boys and girls admitted regularly drinking to excess.  Only youngsters in Denmark and the Isle of Man confessed to drinking more.
Last October, Sally Keeble launched a private members bill calling for a minimum price on alcohol to deter heavy drinking, an idea which has since won the support of England’s Chief Medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson.
Alcohol Concern chief executive Don Shenker said the figures show alcohol misuse is ‘one of the most serious public health issues facing the UK’ and called for tough measures on the sale of cheap drink.  He added: ‘Sadly, these figures confirm more and more young women are developing long-term health problems by regularly drinking over the recommended limits  so it’s not only binge drinking that we should be worried out.’ ends
Source: www.Telegraph.co.uk  4th April 2009

Contrary to what is often claimed by supporters of the tolerant Dutch drugs policy, cannabis usage by young people in the Netherlands is not lower but actually higher than average in Europe, it emerges from the European School Survey on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) over the year 2007.

On usage of cannabis, the Netherlands scores above the European average. Over one-quarter (28 percent) of the youngsters aged 15 and 16 surveyed said they have used cannabis sometime in their life, compared with an average of 19 percent in Europe. Current cannabis usage (at least once in the month prior to the survey) is more than double the European average in the Netherlands (15 versus 7 percent).

The Netherlands has risen in the ranking order of 35 European countries from number 12 in 2003 to number 5 on recent cannabis usage. This is due on the one hand to a 2 percentage point increase from 2003 (13 percent) and on the other, to a reduction in a number of countries that scored worse than the Netherlands in 2003, including France (from 22 to 15 percent) and England(from 20 to 11 percent).

The Dutch youngsters, possibly due to the liberal climate, widely believe that cannabis is innocent. The proportion of schoolchildren that think regular cannabis usage involves big risks is the lowest in the Netherlands (50 percent) of all countries surveyed. It is highest in Finland, at 80 percent.

Nearly half (49 percent) of the Dutch schoolchildren say it is (quite) easy to get cannabis. This puts the Netherlands third after the Czech Republic (66 percent) and the UK (51 percent). The infamous Dutch cannabis bars (‘coffee shops’) are not allowed to admit any minors.

The proportion of Dutch schoolchildren that say they have experience with drugs such as ecstasy, amphetamines, LSD, ‘magic mushrooms’ and cocaine and heroin is 7 percent, exactly the same as the European average. Use of tobacco among Dutch youngsters is also average. The Netherlands does score badly on alcohol consumption.

In the month prior to the survey, nearly one-quarter of the Dutch 15 and 16 year old drunk alcohol more than 10 times, compared with a European average of 10 percent. Only schoolchildren in Austria drink more often. Dutch youngsters also drink slightly more alcohol per occasion than the European average, but countries like Denmark, the UK and Norway have considerably higher scores here.

The risks of alcohol usage are rated low by Dutch schoolchildren. Only 18 percent expect negative effects from their own use of alcohol, such as damage to health or problems with the police, compared with the European average of 32 percent. This gives the Netherlands the lowest score here along with Germany.

This is the fourth time the four-yearly ESPAD study has been carried out. The data collection in the Netherlands was financed by the health ministry and carried out by the Trimbos institute in collaboration with the University of Utrecht.
Source:  NIS News Bulletin <http://www.nisnews.nl 4th April 2009

In a report published in October 2008, the National Audit Office examined the NHS response to the rising levels of alcohol-related disease. Hospital admissions for the three main alcohol specific conditions (alcohol-related liver disease, mental health disorders linked to alcohol, and acute intoxication) have doubled in the last 11 years. There were also twice as many deaths from alcohol related causes in the UK in 2006 as there were 15 years before, increasing from 4,100 to 8,800.
Last week the National Treatment Agency published the staggering figure of nearly 25,000 young people under 18 getting treatment for their drugs and alcohol problems
Drugscope suggest that the numbers of young people using drugs and alcohol are falling and portrays this as ‘good news’.  National school age statistics on drugs use, still show that a staggering 25% of the UK’s school age children (11 – 15) have tried drugs – figures that are way higher than the European average – and that 10% of them are using drugs regularly.The last comparable survey figures for European school children under 15 also showed UK to have 13% of our under 13s having tried cannabis against a European average of 4%. It is also the case that, while the trend for schoolchildren’s drug use remained stable across Europe between 1999 and 2005, in the UK it doubled. Although UK school childrens’ drug of choice, cannabis, appears to have now stabilised, their cocaine consumption has been rising – unheard of elsewhere in Europe.
But it is also likely that levels of teenage cannabis use are higher than the published statistics state, as the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recently acknowledged. In their view the British Crime Survey is likely for a range of reasons to underestimate it. Even so, these estimates show that some 12% of 16 -19 year olds are regular users and that 20% of them have used it in the last year.
A percentage point decline in cannabis use in official statistics is small comfort for parents or for schools. Hospital admissions show that this small gain has been wiped out by the rising strength of cannabis and by the fact that children are moving earlier to Class A drugs. In fact with the UK cannabis market dominated by high THC skunk, which, according to a former head of the Dutch Police Narcotics Division, should now count as a ‘hard drug’, what we are witnessing is an ever earlier and disturbing shift to hard drug use. To dismiss such concerns as distorted perceptions is really not on. As any ‘in touch’ parent of a teenager in central London knows, regular cannabis using kids are moving to cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy by the time they are 16 or 17. Many teenagers appear to be immune to drug dangers despite the endless compulsory personal health and social education classes that they are subjected to at school. Nor has the government’s mixed message about drugs helped – namely their explicit policy statements about the non harmful nature of ‘recreational’ and casual drug use; no more helpful is their confused ‘informed choice’ approach to drugs education.
The appalling truth, as far as adults are concerned, is that we seem to have surrendered to a sense of ‘inevitability’ about children’s drug use.
While drugs services and drugs advisors have no more urgent need than to highlight “the problems faced by young people when they reach 18 and are no longer eligible for specialist services” and “to ease their transition to adult services”, the outlook is dire indeed.
The NTA’s tables reveal that 1600 teenagers are receiving treatment for heroin, cocaine and crack addiction and that 29% – some 6000 in all of those in treatment – are now receiving ‘harm reduction’ interventions – usually understood to be a euphemism for prescribing an opiate substitute like Subutex or methadone. As Professor Neil McKeganey, a leading expert in drugs misuse has said: ‘The idea of starting someone under 18 on a methadone prescription with an implicit expectation that they may be on that drug for the next ten or more years is appalling. We need services to think beyond the chemical inducement into therapy.’
The desperate fact though, is that there is still only one small dedicated residential rehabilitation centre with statutory funding for no more than 12 children/ teenagers at a time in the country. Last year Mike Trace, Chief Executive of RAPT – the Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust – spoke of the urgent need for residential treatment for young, under 18, addicts. Young addicts, he said, were unlikely to get better within the environment in which they had grown up and that had fed their problems. Any parent of a young addict knows just how truly he spoke.
But how much of the National Treatment Agency’s dedicated funding of £25 million is being spent on this? How many teenagers are emerging drug free from their encounters with services? How effective are the disparate psychosocial interventions, pharmacological prescribing interventions, specialist harm reduction, and family interventions on offer? It is simply not enough for the NTA to tell us that the proportion of young intervention according to the goals set out in their care plans’ is 57%. Unless we know what the goals of their care plans are in the first place and what the aspirations are for the young people in question, it is a pretty meaningless statement. As we already know from adult services ‘completing treatment’ may be a measure of virtually nothing.
Source:  Institute of Alcohol Studies,  Alcohol Alert No.1, 2009

The Government’s official drug advisers will recommend later this month that the “legal high” mephedrone should be banned because of the potential serious risks to public health.  But the drug – a legal stimulant sold as plant food and known as miaow-miaow – will not be formally banned until at least the summer as further consultation is needed on whether it should be a Class A, B or C drug.

Pressure on the Government to outlaw mephedrone intensified yesterday when a post-mortem examination on John Sterling Smith, 46, of Hove, East Sussex, showed he died from mephedrone poisoning. His family said they were stunned and called for a ban. Results of toxicology tests released last night blamed mephedrone for his fatal cardiac arrest.  A Sussex Police spokeswoman said that Mr Smith collapsed at a party in Hove in the early hours of February 7. “Two men, aged 35 and 40, both from Brighton, were arrested on suspicion of supplying Class A drugs and released on police bail until May 5 pending further inquiries,” she said.

Headteachers called yesterday for action on the drug, which has been linked with at least five deaths.  Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, from Scunthorpe, died after taking mephedrone, which can be bought for £4 and is also known as “M-cat”. Both teenagers had been drinking alcohol and police said last night that they may have taken the heroin substitute methadone too.  There have been two other deaths in Britain linked to mephedrone, which is illegal in countries including Norway, Germany and Finland.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs at present lacks sufficient members to make a formal recommendation, but the appointments process is being brought forward to next week to get over the legal problem. A spokesman said: “The council has been looking at the dangers of mephedrone and related cathinone compounds, as a priority. The ACMD held an evidence-gathering meeting on February 22 and continues to carefully work on considerations with a view to providing advice to ministers on March 29.”

Alan Campbell, a junior Home Office minister, said: “We are determined to act swiftly but it is important we consider independent expert advice to stop organised criminals exploiting loopholes by simply switching to a different but similar compound.”  The Home Office denied that the sacking of Professor David Nutt, former chairman of the council, and subsequent resignations of key members of the organisation had led to “inordinate” delays in considering a ban.

Professor Nutt warned yesterday against a hasty reaction, saying a ban had to be based on “sound science”.

Tim Hollis, the Association of Police Chief Constables’ spokesman on drugs, said a ban would enable police to act against those possessing and supplying the drug. He spoke as Mike Stewart, head of Westlands School in Torquay, Devon, said teachers were in the absurd position of having to hand back packages of the drug seized in lessons.  Side-effects of mephadrone include high blood pressure, a burning throat, nose bleeds and purple joints.

Source:   Times online 18th March 2010

A record number of young people were treated for a drugs and alcohol problem last year.
Counsellors in England alone saw 52,294 people aged 13-24, a rise of 12% in two years, according to data from the National Treatment Agency (NTA).
There’s been a sharp drop in those addicted to ‘hard’ drugs like heroin.
Instead under-25s are now more likely to have a problem with a cocktail of ‘party’ drugs like cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy, often mixed with alcohol.
Campaigners say treatment services aimed at young adults need to change quickly to deal with what some are calling the biggest shift in drug habits in a generation.
‘Taken it all’
Newsbeat went to a drug treatment scheme in Stockport to speak to 24-year-old Steve, not his real name, from Liverpool.
“It first started when I was 15,” he said.
“Cannabis led to whizz, Es, pills and coke. Alcohol and drugs were a major part of my life for five years.
“When you’re young you hate to be the one left out and most my friends at school were alcohol and drug users.
“I was taking whatever I could get my hands on and mixing them with alcohol. We would come back at one or two in the morning every night and my mum and dad would be fuming.”
Treatment rises
Officials from the NTA say the overall rise in treatment over the last three years does not necessarily mean a record number of young people are abusing drugs and alcohol.
They claim at least part of the increase can be explained by the growth in treatment services.
Young people picked up by the police are also more likely to be drug tested and referred to a treatment centre.
But the figures do show a major change in the kind of drugs young people are getting treated for.
Counsellors are seeing a dramatic shift away from heroin and crack use, the two ‘problem drugs’ typically linked to serious abuse.
18,597 people aged 13-24 were treated for an addiction to those two drugs last year, down 19% in just two years.
At the same time, more young people are having a problem with booze mixed with ‘softer’ party drugs, a phenomenon nicknamed ACCE (pronounced ‘ace’) by drug workers, short for Alcohol plus Cocaine, Cannabis and Ecstasy.
The number of under-25s getting treatment for one or more of those drugs has gone up 44% from 21,744 in 2005/6 to 31,401 in 2007/8.
“Alcohol is cheaper and more available, cannabis is far stronger, cocaine is half the price it used to be and you can get half a dozen ecstasy tablets for £10,” according to Howard Parker, Professor Emeritus at Manchester University, who coined the term ‘ACCE’ last year.
“Put those three together and you’ve got just as serious a problem for health, family life and society as heroin.”
Work carried out by Parker and researchers at Liverpool John Moores University shows the average age of a heroin user in treatment in North West England has risen to 36. The average age of someone with an ACCE problem is just 22.
But while youth services aimed at under-18s can be effective at dealing with an ACCE-type problem, when users hit their 18th birthday they are often forced to switch to an adult-only drug treatment service.
“Those [adult] services are there to deal with heroin and crack users,” said Parker. “The real issue is why there are hardly any services for ACCErs when they get to 18. It’s just pot luck; it’s a postcode lottery.”
Adult drug projects are paid twice as much for treating a heroin and crack user as someone with a powder cocaine or ecstasy problem.
As a result, those services tend to focus on medical treatment like methadone replacement, a drug used to wean heroin users off their addiction.
But there are no ‘replacement’ drugs to treat a cocaine or cannabis problem.
Instead months or even years of therapy and support are needed to get users to manage their drug problem and eventually quit.
Alcohol plus drugs
The man in charge of young people’s drug policy for the National Treatment Agency, Tom Aldridge, told Newsbeat that adult services focus on heroin and crack users for a reason.
“There are very clear links between acquisitive crime and problematic [heroin and crack] drug use,” he said.
“We want to prioritise those drugs because they have more of an impact on society in terms of criminal activity and public health.
“But we are very clear that people should be given a service depending on their need, not depending on their age.
“If you have a 20 or 21-year-old that requires treatment best given by an under-18 service then they should go to that service.”
All under-18 services in England combine alcohol and drug treatment so young people can get detox and therapy for both problems at the same time.
But almost all adult services split alcohol and drugs into two completely separate programmes in different locations with different counsellors and critics say that can often mean young people drop out.
Tom Aldridge accepts that there may be an argument for combining alcohol and drug treatment for over-18s in England, as they have recently decided to do in Northern Ireland.
“We have no responsibility for the alcohol agenda,” he said. “If that were the case, there may well be lots in advantages in that. But it’s not the case at the moment.”
The Stockport solution
But in some parts of the country a handful of treatment services are already changing the way they work to deal with the ACCE phenomenon.
Newsbeat went to see a council-run drug scheme for young people in Stockport that has increased the age range of its patients from 18 all the way up to 25.
Heidi Shaw, who runs the centre called Mosaic, said that decision was a direct result of seeing more young people with recreational drug problems come through the doors.
“We knew those young people would not get help elsewhere,” she said. “Their lives are still being devastated by drugs. They are still having problems with crime, housing, training and employment.
“The same profile of substance misuse is coming through. It’s cannabis, alcohol and then cocaine.”
Mosaic also runs a service to support parents and family members of people in treatment and carries out drug prevention work in Stockport’s 14 schools.
Steve has been getting treatment for his alcohol and drug problems there for four years.
“I feel more comfortable because they seem to understand more about you,” he said. “They contact you virtually every day to see how you are doing.
“I went through detox. They put you in a dry house for a week and give you medication to counteract the effects of alcohol and the cravings.
“Since then I’ve not touched a drop and I’ve got Mosaic to thank for that.
“My life’s changed because I’m off alcohol completely and I’m working on the drugs. Hopefully this time next year, I will be off them as well.”
Source:  BBC Newsbeat 8th June 2009

MAASTRICHT — About 30 cannabis-vending coffee shops in the south of the Netherlands announced Tuesday they would become private members’ clubs at the start of next year to keep out foreign drug tourists.
“We will transform the coffee shops from open establishments, accessible by all, to closed establishments of which clients need to be members,” Maastricht’s Mayor Gerd Leers told a press conference in the border town.
In the latest move away from the traditionally liberal Dutch approach to such issues as soft drugs and prostitution, coffee shops in the province of Limburg said they would start issuing membership cards.
The application procedure would take several days, in effect preventing short-term tourists from buying marijuana.  The move is backed by the national government, and is seen as a pilot project for possible expansion to other areas.
Some four million foreigners travel to Limburg every year to buy cannabis, according to a municipal official.
The measure, to be applied uniformly by all coffee shops in the province which borders Belgium and Germany, would seek to “discourage the majority of drug tourists,” said Leers.   “We have been fighting for years against the nuisance brought here by the Belgians, the French and the Germans,” he added.    These included damage to city property, heavy road traffic, a rising trade in hard drugs and other criminal activities.
From January 1 next year, the province will limit the sale of cannabis in its coffee shops to three grams per person per day.  Each buyer would have to present a membership card that would work on the basis of a fingerprint, iris or some similar identification system. Purchases will only be possible by bank card or credit transfer.
Dutch law allows the consumption and possession of up to five grams of cannabis per individual, but prohibits the cultivation and mass retail of the soft drug.   Some 700 so-called coffee shops nationwide have special licenses to sell marijuana but are allowed to keep no more than 500 grams on site.
Home Affairs Minister Guusje ter Horst told Tuesday’s launch that the new project was the first step in a “harder approach to illegality” by Dutch law enforcement.   Also, the Dutch Council of State, which advises the government on legislation, had asked the European Court of Justice to weigh the legality of limiting access to Dutch coffee shops to Dutch citizen.   An answer is expected in about 18 months.
Several Dutch municipalities have recently announced plans to close all or part of the coffee shops within their borders, partly to discourage crime and drug tourism.
But Leers said closing coffee shops was not a viable alternative, as this risked “chasing clients into illegality”.
Source: Agence France-Presse 05/13/2009

The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) of the California Environmental Protection Agency is adding marijuana smoke to the Proposition 65 list1, effective June 19, 2009. 
Marijuana smoke was considered by the Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC) of the OEHHA Science Advisory Board2 at a public meeting held on May 29, 2009.  The CIC determined that marijuana smoke was clearly shown, through scientifically valid testing according to generally accepted principles, to cause cancer.  Consequently, marijuana smoke is being added to the Proposition 65 list, pursuant to Title 27, California Code of Regulations, section 25305(a)(1) (formerly Title 22, California Code of Regulations, section 12305(a)(1)). 
A complete, updated chemical list is published elsewhere in this issue of the California Regulatory Notice Register.
In summary, marijuana smoke is being listed under Proposition 65 as known to the State to cause cancer: 
Source:  State of California published announcement l9th June 2009

 
The annual United Nations World Drug Report published yesterday confirmed my analysis of the available data which shows the UK to have the worst drugs problem in Europe. Yet a month ago when the The Phoney War on Drugs was published by the CPS Jacqui Smith and the Home Office went into denial mode.
While repeating Labour’s worn out justification that “overall drug use is lower than when Labour took office”, and that this is “a clear sign that our strategy is working” – exactly the myth that my paper debunked – she resolutely turned her back on the facts of rising drug deaths, rising ‘problem’ drug use (now put by the UN at 400,000, some 70,000 higher than 2006 measures)  rising prescribed methadone dependency and the doubling of cocaine consumption.
Even before the latest UN report figures were released new data in the last month on drugs related damage and a new analyses of seizure data confirmed my thesis.  The Independent on Sunday  revealed a 67% increase in the number of babies born suffering from drug withdrawal symptoms in the past 10 years even though these statistics (of opiate addicted babies) exclude those newborns with problems due to their mother’s exposure to cocaine, amphetamines and cannabis.
Yesterday’s UN Report repeated my comparative data analysis which showed that the UK is the largest market for cocaine and that consumption has more than doubled in recent years and is higher than anywhere else in Europe.
 Martin Blakebrough, the CEO of the drug charity Kaleidoscope said in response that, “The numbers exploded probably around five years ago and they’ve continued to rise because it’s become more mainstream .. it has a kudos or glamour not associated with other substances”. Meanwhile drugs counsellors confirm that teenagers are moving from cannabis to cocaine as young as 14 and that use by children as young as 11 is rising. It is something that the government’s preferred treatment intervention, methadone prescribing, can do nothing about.
SOCA’s claim that this consumption rise is despite cocaine prices reaching record levels due to their interdiction must however be treated with extreme scepticism. These are not street prices and reflect currency exchange rate changes as I pointed out a few weeks ago.
The truth is that the explosion in cocaine use mirrors a period in which UK cocaine quantity seizures have dropped, as have prices, while the market has expanded. The hard evidence I detailed in my paper points to failing enforcement competence and commitment on the part of the government and SOCA. Furthermore publication this month of an analysis of Scottish heroin seizures by Professor Neil McKeagney confirmed that these are at record lows.
So, surely now the Government and its various drugs satellites and quangos must face the truth of the uniquely appalling social problem we face in Britain and the extent to which their misguided policy has contributed to it.  They must finally give up trying to justify themselves by one selective measure of drugs use prevalence picked from the British Crime Survey and the English Schools survey and accept the fact that this does not even begin to measure the extent of drugs related harm. Even less does it measure policy efficacy.
Nowhere is this claim less credible than in their resort to these ‘official’ measures of declining cannabis use to ‘prove’ that adolescent drug use and addiction are under control.  Neither of these surveys reach the part of the population that drugs reach most. Fewer schools sampled each year chose to cooperate.  The number of truanting, absentee and excluded children continues to rise.  The Government apparently remains convinced that if schoolchildren’s cannabis use is dropping that this is sufficient unto the day. The ‘if’ remains quite big.
The reality on the streets however is one of a youth alcohol and drugs crisis that Ray Lewis illustrated powerfully in response to my paper. The number in need of drugs treatment continues to rise (alongside hospital admissions); demand outpaces provision while the ‘treatment’ on offer is totally inadequate.
One thin and poorly nourished boy I met last week told me that on his estate he knew no one, neither adolescent nor adult, who did not use drugs.  And just a few weeks ago when I asked a health visitor working in inner London how many of the 400 families on her books had a drug problem, she countered defensively, “don’t ask, it is a fact of life, we have to accept it.”  That is the trouble. This is the official attitude to drug use and everything that goes with it is: ‘There is nothing you can do’.
But it is the Government’s performance-driven, methadone ‘treatment’ drugs policy that is maintaining these lifestyles rather than changing them. All the kids do, one adolescent addiction counsellor told me, is use ‘community treatment’ on offer as part of this lifestyle.  They are offered nothing to make them change or to enable such a change. Treatment ‘in the community’ leaves them with the same older adults still in their lives and subject to the same environment. They may go through several methadone ‘detoxes’ with the aim of ‘bringing down’ their illicit drug use, but this is often even without a plan to reduce the methadone use. There is no other ambition. “You can get up to 40mls of methadone a day if you are under 16″, one girl confidently told me. “All it does”, she said, “is to keep everything going – to maintain everything else”.
She was one of the handful of lucky ones. Two three month sessions at Middlegate, the only dedicated residential adolescent addiction centre in the country, had changed her life. A heroin addict at 14, moved from one inadequate foster home to another, finding herself on the street and in dealers flats, missing out on years of her education, she had, thanks to one enlightened and persistent social worker who forced the local authority to stump up the cash, been sent to Middlegate. This summer she has been sitting four academic AS levels. 
The staff at Middlegate despair at the years of wasted public money pumped into ‘community treatment’ when they know what they can achieve with the most desperate of cases. What the kids need, they say, is rescuing and lifting out of their environments – not a sequence of social workers and drug workers operating with their government defined agendas to ‘rebuild families’ at whatever the cost yet incapable of providing the long term commitment required.
Yet the National Treatment Agency, wedded to this ‘treatment in the community’ agenda for all adolescents,  refuses to ring fence any funds for Middlegate to ensure this life changing programme can continue, let alone be replicated anywhere else.
Responding to The Phoney War on Drugs one highly respected addiction psychiatrist commented that I had not emphasised sufficiently “the huge waste of resource brought about by the NTA’s enthusiasm to allow managerialism to take over the field.”  He is right. The NTA’s approach to treatment is now so entrenched in a complex, resource hungry but inflexible bureaucracy that it is standing in the way of the revolution in rehabilitation that is required.  Nothing less than a major diversion of resources in the direction of rehabilitation and away from people processing plus a clearly conditional and contractual approach to drug treatment will work.
The government would do well now, before inflicting more damage on our society, to face the facts and acknowledge that their approach to ‘treatment’ and their drugs policy has failed abysmally.
 Source:  http://www.cps.org.uk  25.06.2009

More than 11,000 children under 16 years old were treated last year for addictions to alcohol and drugs, including heroin, according to new figures released this week.
The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse puts the total figure of children treated at 11,294. This includes 6,075 under-16s addicted to cannabis, of which 102 are under 12 years old.
More than 4,000 children received help for alcoholism, including 57 under-12s.
The children addicted to class A drugs included ten under-12s who were dependent on heroin, out of 93 under-16s. A further 323 children were treated for cocaine misuse, 165 for ecstasy, and 36 for crack.
Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the government is neglecting a ‘forgotten generation’ of children. “It’s a sad indictment of our broken society that so many are turning to things like drug and alcohol abuse at such a young age” he said.
The Department of Health said the high figures were due to an increase in spending on treatment, a rise of £10million, from £15million to £25million in the past five years,
Funding for the government’s national anti-drug campaign which is aimed at teenagers has been cut by 41 per cent from £9.05million in 2006-7 to £5.35million today.
Charity Drugscope offered an optimistic approach to the figures, saying the overall numbers of young people using illegal drugs has fallen in recent years, especially cannabis.
Source: www.askamum.co.uk  8th July 2009

Calls for action as crime hits six times worldwide average. Scotland is the worst country in the world for drug-related crime, according to an international study.
The United Nations found there were 656 drug offences per 100,000 people in Scotland. Second-placed Iran recorded 619 per 100,000.
The figures, which compared drug-related crime, possession and abuse across more than 70 states, put Scotland’s drug crime rate at more than double that of England and Wales, and six times the worldwide average.   Experts and opposition parties described the statistics, from a survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as “horrifying”.
Former director of Scotland Against Drugs, Alistair Ramsay, said: “This report should act as a wake-up call to the government. There has been a huge rise in problematic drug users in recent years and we know many of them fund their habit through crime.
“The fact is the way drugs are tackled needs a radical shake-up. We need a proper, co-ordinated strategy.”    Bill Aitken, justice spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: “These are horrifying figures and it is clear action is long overdue.
“Practically all crimes such as shoplifting, housebreaking and car theft are related to a need to feed a drug habit. It may be that much tougher action is necessary in the years ahead.”
However, Gordon Meldrum, director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, insisted that the war on drugs was being won.   He said: “The latest Scottish Crime and Justice Survey shows encouraging signs that more people in Scotland are living their lives  free from the influence of drugs. We have better intelligence than ever before and more hard drugs are being intercepted closer to source before they are cut into multiple street-level deals.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said that the administration was investing record amounts in justice as well as delivering the highest number of police to fight serious crime.
Source: www.news.stv.tv.  21 February 2010 10:58 AM

Nine people accounted for 2,678 of the emergency room visits in the Austin, Texas, area during the past six years at a cost of $3 million to taxpayers and others, according to a report by the nonprofit Integrated Care Collaboration, a group of health care providers who care for low-income and uninsured patients.  The average emergency room visit costs $1,000.  Hospitals and taxpayers paid the bill through government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.  Eight of the nine patients have drug abuse problems, seven were diagnosed with mental health issues and three were homeless.
Source:  St.Petersburg Times. 4th April 2009

A synthetic drug that is up to five times as powerful as cannabis is being sold legally in Britain, as incense.
It has already been made illegal in Germany and is also banned in the Netherlands.
The drug is based on the chemical JWH018 which mimics the effects of tetra hydra cannabinol or THC, the main active ingredient of cannabis. Drugs watchdogs are currently investigating the sale of the substance in the UK. JWH018, was first synthesised in a US lab in 1995. It was originally developed for scientific experiments on chemical receptors in the brain. However, it is now being manufactured in China, and is being sold at UK events like rock festivals as part of the growing “legal high” industry.

The UK drugs regulator, the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is understood to have identified JWH018 in products available in the UK. It is currently in order to determine whether or not it should be classified as a medicinal product – which would mean it should only be available from a doctor.

The UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which advises the government on whether a drug should be made illegal, is also aware of the substance, and is investigating it.  In addition to being illegal in Germany, it has been banned in the Netherlands and its legality is under review in Austria. But scientists do not know what side effects the drug could have, as no tests have been done on its toxicity either in the lab or on animals.

Toxicologist Dr John Ramsey, who runs the Tic Tac Communications drugs database at St George’s Medical School in London, said: “It’s not a problem at the moment, in that we’re not aware of casualties appearing in A&E, but there’s an underlying potential for a problem.”
He added that there were between 20 and 30 other similar substances that could be added to the incense mixtures.

Source:www.drugsproject.co.uk  19^th Feb.2009

There were 897 deaths involving heroin or morphine in 2008, an 8 per cent rise compared with 2007 and the highest number since 2001. The number of deaths involving methadone rose throughout 2004 to 2008, to 378 in the latest year, an increase of 16 per cent compared with 2007 (and 73 per cent higher than in 2004). There were 235 deaths involving cocaine in 2008, continuing the long-term upward trend.

There were 99 deaths involving amphetamines in 2008, with nearly half of these being accounted for by deaths mentioning ecstasy. Cannabis was mentioned in 19 deaths in 2008, while the number of deaths mentioning GHB rose to 20 in 2008 from 9 in 2007. The number of deaths that mentioned benzodiazepines rose to 230 in 2008, an increase of 11.

Source: Office for National Statistics  26 August 2009

What is miaow drug?

A 14 year old girl, Gabi Price, has died after apparently taking a new drug, known as miaow.

Gabi Price died after apparently taking a new drug, known as miaow “Miaow” is sold as plant food on the internet where it is described as being not for human consumption.

It was made illegal in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Israel due to growing evidence of harm, including a reported possible cause of death.

Apart from the euphoria and alertness it is said to induce anxiety, paranoia and a risk of fits. It is known as a “legal high” and its popularity is increasing sharply because it is legal to buy.

Police forces are aware of its existence, but because of its recent emergence onto the market are unsure of how widespread its use is.
Some internet forum users have described it as “the saviour of clubland” should it not be outlawed soon.

Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6645673/14-year-old-girl-dies-after-taking-legal-drug-at-party.html

California is capturing national media coverage as the state debates the issue of legalizing and taxing marijuana. A legislative bill (AB 390) and three potential ballot initiatives propose different strategies to allegedly profit financially from marijuana. Promotion of those measures rely on a biased study. The study suggesting potential revenue gains is not only questionable, but also neglects to identify societal costs associated with marijuana.

In a written response to an article published by the Sacramento Bee, Police Chief Scott C. Kirkland addresses what the pro-drug lobby and the study they promote have neglected. His response may have been written to specifically address issues in California, but his points are relevant to other states considering similar measures.

Can your state afford to gamble on legalizing marijuana? After reading what Chief Kirkland has to say, I think you will agree the answer is NO; our nation cannot afford the damaging cost such efforts would have on society.

On August 6, 2009, the Sacramento Bee published an editorial by F. Aaron Smith entitled, “Legalized pot is more than a tax bonanza.” I would like the opportunity to present the other side.

My name is Scott C. Kirkland and I am currently the Police Chief in El Cerrito. I am on the Board of Directors for the California Police Chiefs Association as well as the California Peace Officers’ Association. Moreover, I am currently the Chair Person of the California Police Chiefs Medical Marijuana Task Force. The task force is comprised of representatives from the California Peace Officers’ Association, California Police Chiefs Association, California State Sheriff Association, California District Attorneys’ Association, California Narcotics Association, and other interested parties.

The purpose of this article is to write specifically about the financial aspect of the issue. I would be more than happy to contribute other articles that discuss the Assembly Bill specifically, the substance itself, or any other aspect of this issue should you so desire.

The advocates on this issue have once again selected a very well crafted message to the public. In essence, they are saying that the State of California should legalize and tax marijuana and that this action would allow the State to remain solvent. The argument would then be that with a solvent State, police officers, firefighters, and teachers will not be laid off. Mr. Smith states that there would be $1.4 billion in new tax revenue available to solve the state budget crises. But, let us examine those numbers and see if the State of California could afford such a gamble.

Yes, the Board of Equalization did identify a potential revenue stream from the sale of marijuana but are those numbers accurate? In their bill analysis, the sole report that is cited as the basis of their revenue projections is entitled, Marijuana Production in the United States (2006). The report was written by Jon Gettman, who served as President for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He writes the “Cannabis Column” for the HighTimes.com. Mr. Gettman owns DrugScience.com which he cites six times in his report. Upon reading the report and comparing the report to various law enforcement data that is published, his estimates of marijuana crops are more than twice as high.

I believe it is and was irresponsible for the individuals that wrote the bill analysis not to have known who the author of the report was and to have questioned his credibility. In this day of Internet usage I have become in the habit of doing a “Google” search on authors upon reading their work. It is important to me to know where the author is coming from and it should be important for those who complete a bill analysis. It took me ten minutes to glean information about Mr. Gettman. I believe it is important for all who delve into this emotional issue to fully research it and failure to do so results in a slanted and inaccurate analysis.

Since the Bill Analysis is utilizing a study that shows double the estimates of any other law enforcement data, the Board of Equalization’s initial projections are simply wrong. I believe it is this type of financial forecasting that has caused the State of California so much trouble today.

In May of 2009, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University released a report entitled, “Shoveling Up II: The Impact of Substance Abuse on Federal, State and Local Budgets.” This one hundred and seventy-six (176) page report documents for the first time the costs of the two legal substances that are abused today (Alcohol and Tobacco). The costs are substantial!

In 2005, the State of California spent $19.9 billion dollars on substance abuse and addiction or $545.09 per capita (population of 36.5 million). Once again I am talking specifically about Alcohol and Tobacco. But, the State of California collected $1.4 billion dollars of tax revenue or $38.69 per capita on the sale of Alcohol and Tobacco products. Yes, the costs far exceeded the revenue!

I believe it is also worth mentioning that as of June 19, 2009, California’s Carcinogen Identification Committee of the Office of Environmental Health and Assessment Science Advisory Board issued a ruling that listed marijuana smoke as causing cancer. This is just another reason why the financial analysis of the bill does not make economic sense. From a public health stand point, why would we, residents of California, want to legalize a crude substance that is known to cause cancer when the costs of substance abuse of the psychoactive drug will far outweigh the amount of monies the state receives? Are we that short sighted? How is the State of California going to find the monies to pay for the costs of abuse, treatment, and damage to youth? These are all unanswered questions that must be addressed in order for there to be a fair and impartial analysis that voters rely on when they go to the polls.

Source: Source: Save Our Society From Drugs Oct 2009

Experts call for urgent action to reduce ‘unacceptably high’ death toll from diseases directly linked to drinking
Alcohol will claim more than 90,000 lives over the next decade without urgent action to tackle the country’s increasingly ruinous relationship with drinking, experts warn today.
They predict that 90,800 people will be killed by diseases directly linked to drinking, such as alcoholic liver disease and chronic hepatitis, and alcohol poisoning.
Deaths due to drinking have trebled over the last 25 years as per capita consumption has risen to become one of the highest in Europe, according to research by Prof Martin Plant, of the University of the West of England, one of the UK’s leading authorities on alcohol-related harm.
If recent trends continue, the number of people each year who die because their body can no longer cope with alcohol will reach 9,080, a study by Plant and colleagues shows. That is more than one fatality per hour every day of the year. The figure does not include people who die as a result of alcohol-related accidents, such as drink-driving, or those in whom alcohol has exacerbated their ill-health, such as various forms of cancer.
“This is an unacceptably high death toll and the worst part is that all of these deaths are avoidable,” said Don Shenker, of Alcohol Concern, which commissioned the research. Currently 8,724 deaths a year are directly attributable to alcohol, according to the Office of National Statistics.
Alcohol-related deaths have risen in every age group since 1990, with 55- to 74-year-olds seeing the highest mortality rates and steepest increase, Plant’s research reveals. He and his team analysed alcohol consumption per head and drink deaths over the last 25 years. They say their findings prove definitively that the more people drink, the more deaths will follow.
Plant said the government needed to make reducing drink-related deaths the top priority of its alcohol strategy. The report prompted fresh calls from medical leaders for ministers to implement tough measures to curb consumption, such as introducing a minimum price per unit of alcohol, as recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) last week. Gordon Brown has ruled out such a move, but the minority SNP government at Holyrood is exploring its introduction in Scotland.
“Over the next decade alcohol misuse is set to kill more people than the population of a city the size of Bath,” said Prof Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians. “Much of this tragic loss of life, often in young and otherwise productive people, could be prevented if our policymakers followed the evidence for what works. Confronting the culture of low prices and saturation advertising, along with investments in accessible, effective treatments for harmful and dependent drinkers could make a big impact on what is becoming a public health emergency.”
Dr Peter Carter, head of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “For 90,000 lives to be thrown away as a result of excessive drinking would be an absolute tragedy. All political parties … must think carefully about the steps needed to … prevent the predicted devastation from becoming a reality.”
The public health minister, Gillian Merron, said: “Any death from alcohol is a death too many. Although the majority of people who drink alcohol drink responsibly, we must take action to reduce the health and social harm caused by those who don’t.
“That’s why the government is working harder than ever to reduce alcohol-related hospital admissions and to help those who regularly drink too much or are dependent on alcohol.”
Source: www.guardianco.uk 19th Oct 2009

A radical pilot scheme that uses ex-offenders to rehabilitate prisoners has almost trebled the rate of those going into work or training on release.
The first evaluation of the Scottish Government-supported scheme revealed that more than 2000 prisoners signed up to the pilot project, which uses reformed inmates to provide advice and support and ensure prisoners are put in touch with health and education services on release.
The scheme was open to those serving sentences of four years or less and managed to get almost one in five into training or employment – a significant figure, considering that most of those involved had committed violent offences and that traditionally fewer than 7% of those leaving prison go into work or education.
Of the 2861 who signed up to the project in prison, almost half continued meeting their life coach in the community. Only 25 of them had been in work before they were locked up, and more than half had 10 or more previous convictions.
The Routes Out Of Prison project, run by the Wise Group, uses reformed ex-offenders to meet people at the prison gates on release and to act as a bridge between them and housing, health and drugs rehabilitation services.
The life coaches meet the prisoner at the gates and offer them support and advice
Lawrie Russell, chief executive of the Wise Group Early results with just a small number of the prisoners involved indicated that they were not offending six months after release.
The results are expected to come under close scrutiny by ministers who are desperate to cut Scotland’s re-offending rates. Cara Jardine, one of the authors of the report, done by Edinburgh University, said: “Overall we felt that the evaluation was encouraging and that the model is an effective way of reaching a client group that is often difficult to engage with due to their often chaotic lifestyles and previous experiences of the criminal justice system.
“Re-offending rates are something we will try to get some measure of in this next phase of the evaluation.”The pilot began in 2006 in four prisons in the west of Scotland, including HMP Barlinnie. The prison service said it has had positive results and is now being rolled out across seven jails.
The report states: “Only 21% of clients stated that their offending was their only ‘barrier’ to desistance from crime, while the remaining 79% had at least one other issue in their lives. For 38%, their secondary barrier was drug misuse; for 34% it was alcohol misuse; in 31% of cases it was a health issue; and for 27% it was homelessness.
“Two-thirds of clients had been in prison at least once before, while around a fifth had been imprisoned on 10 or more occasions. The vast majority also had numerous convictions with 59% having 10 or more previous convictions.” Official figures show that Scotland locks up more people per capita than almost any other European country, and almost two-thirds of them reoffend within two years. Research has shown that the two biggest factors in reducing re-offending are having a job and being in a stable relationship.
In the first two years, the pilot received £1 million from the Scottish Government, £200,000 from the European Structural Fund, and £60,000 from Glasgow City Council. It is currently funded through the Big Lottery Fund and local authorities.
Lawrie Russell, chief executive of the Wise Group, said: “The project provides a bridging service to link people to the services they need on release. The life coaches offer to meet the prisoner at the gates and then offer them support and advice in the community whilst making sure they have access to the services they need. We hope to roll it out across Scotland.”
Jamie carries the scars of his past on his face. They’re as indelible as his prison record, but he is hoping to make a different mark with the remainder of his life. He is 37 and cannot remember how many times he has been to prison. In the past few weeks, he has stabilised his drug use and next week plans to begin an intensive detox. He would like to try to help others who have come through a similar situation.
Jamie, one of more than 2000 Scottish prisoners who have been through Routes Out Of Prison, was in his final weeks at Barlinnie when he heard about the project and met Jason Meechan, the life coach who now sits next to him.
“I’d heard that they could help with housing and thought why not? A lot of people knock it back – even the chance of an interview – but I thought I’d try it. I’m getting old and I want to see my family. A lot of people don’t want help. Without the support I’ve had though, I don’t know what I would have done.” Jamie says one of his greatest regrets lies in not attending secondary school. He started taking cannabis when he was 13 and slipped too easily into a cycle of gangs, residential schools, and secure units.
He spent his 16th birthday in Polmont Young Offenders’ Institute. He cannot remember receiving the scar that still splits his cheek in two.“I needed Jason to motivate me,” he says. “I really clicked with him and I listen to all his advice. It helped that he knows where I’m coming from.”
Mr Meechan, like most of the life coaches, is an ex-prisoner. He was in and out of jail for almost 10 years before he realised he needed to change. Most of the charges related to assault and robbery. He was addicted to alcohol and drugs.“They say you become your own best customer,” he says. “When my son was born, I was shocked into changing. I got help with my addiction and started up a construction business but realised I had a real passion for helping people. Now I’m paid to do something I love.
“It is about empowering the client to take decisions and getting them the help they need by putting them in touch with the right agencies. Going back into the prisons felt strange at first but it’s not an issue anymore. It helps that I can say to clients I have been there too.”
Source: Herald Scotland 9th Nov.2009

Mephedrone — a stimulant that is currently legal in both the U.K. and the U.S. — has gained recent and surprising popularity among club-goers in the U.K., according to Britain’s National Addiction Center.
The BBC reported Jan. 14 that the drug, also known as meph, 4-MMC, MCAT, Drone, Meow or Bubbles, was the fourth-most popular drug cited by readers of Mixmag, a popular British dance magazine.
“It’s come from nowhere to become very popular,” said researcher Adam Winstock. “For a drug that’s been around for a relatively short amount of time, mephedrone has certainly made a big impact on the dance drug scene.”
Users describe the drug’s high as falling somewhere between that of ecstasy and cocaine. The drug is sold legally in the U.K. as a plant food; it is a powder that can be taken in pill form, snorted, mixed with liquid or even injected.
Side effects include headaches, heart palpitations, and nausea.
Source: BBC 14th Jan 2010

Professor Nutt was funded by the West Australian Government to come to Fremantle as a key note presenter at its bi-annual Harm Reduction/drug legalisation Drug and Alcohol Authority Symposium. Supposedly an education forum for the massive network of drug and alcohol field workers, Nutt set about not only minimising the harms of cannabis and ecstasy but promoting them.He claimed that ecstasy is being used by therapists to treat PTSD in Europe and that cannabis should be used as treatment for cannabis withdrawal paranoia and panic attacks – what he should have pointed out is that these episodes are horrifying and last many years after the first attack.Nutt did not declare his conflicting interest e.g. that he sits on the advisory boards of several international pharmaceutical companies.Now I wonder why that would be!

Source: e-mail from G. Mullins, contact in Australia. Nov. l0th 2009

The CDC report “Deaths: Final Data for 2006” released in April 2009, reveals a spectacular 15% increase in drug induced deaths in 2006 compared to 2005 (latest data available.) These 2006 rates once again have reached yet another new national all-time record high for the 16th consecutive year. It reports that 38,396 Americans died in 2006 directly from “Drug-induced causes” the vast majority of which were overdose deaths from use of illegal drugs or from illegal use of legal drugs. ( See page 93 of 135 of the CDC report at link: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf )

Steadily increasing OD deaths over the past two decades strongly indicate that current national drug OD death rates in 2009 are raging out of control at national crisis levels. The graph shows the 2006 total of 38,396 deaths with the trend line heading off the chart! This calculates to a rate of over 3,000 deaths occurring MONHLY and rising.

Parents’ drug prevention organizations from throughout the nation recognize that the vast majority of those drug overdose deaths result from the early introduction and addiction of schoolchildren to drugs and alcohol (which is an illegal drug for teens) in their schools. Therefore they have petitioned President Obama and Congress for early enactment of the demand-reducing national drug prevention strategy of implementing a federal mandate for health screening all secondary school students for drugs by Random Student Drug Testing (RSDT) see attached. The legislative precedent for such a mandate is the federal mandate for the 21 drinking age that Congress enacted in 1984 in reaction to widespread tragic teen auto crashes, injuries and deaths on the nation’s highways that had directly resulted from states authorizing teen alcohol use in the 1970s.

“Diagnostic drug testing is the very best means ever found for effectively reducing the kids’ exposure to the deadly disease of drug addiction. This has been well demonstrated in the military, businesses, transportation industry and in the over 4,000 U.S. schools currently using drug testing,” said Joyce Nalepka, president of Drug Free Kids: America’s Concern and former president of Nancy Reagan’s National Federation of Parents. “We parents sincerely appreciate that RSDT is fully supported by Congress, the ONDCP, the U.S. Education Department, DEA, U.S. Justice Department, and all health-related federal agencies,” she added.

Congress should reject recent efforts by professional drug legalization lobbyists to soften federal laws on drug abuse and reduce federal support for RSDT. Their frenzied attempts to get street drugs legalized will only help drug traffickers reap further profits from the drug-related destruction of families, schools and communities throughout the nation. Congress must support parents and their children against the drug traffickers.

“This avalanche of tragic drug overdose deaths among our children should serve as a wake up call to all members of Congress. They must support America’s drug-besieged parents who demand that federal support continue and be increased for utilizing RSDT as a compassionate non-punitive means of reducing the nation’s inordinate demand for drugs and reducing the ultimate harm of massive drug overdose deaths,” said

Source DeForest Rathbone, Chairman of the National Institute of Citizen Anti-drug Policy (NICAP.)
April 30, 2009

By Carolyn Plocher (Bio | Archive)
October 14, 2009 – 17:03 ET
•
England can’t afford to help Alzheimer’s patients pay for their medicine, but it can offer free shooting galleries to heroin addicts.
On Oct. 14 CNN’s “American Morning” aired a segment about the controversial program that “gives heroin to heroin addicts at the taxpayers’ expense.” Correspondent Paula Newton declared, “A safe, steady supply of heroin is apparently just what the doctor ordered … As radical as it is, for some it is really working.” She also said that the British government’s decision to dole out 97 percent pure heroin – “better than anything sold on the street” – “takes heroin off the streets.”
John Strang, a member of King’s Health Partners claimed that the “intensity of the program is quite striking. The bond that is formed and the commitment that’s established between the patient coming in for treatment and the staff is far greater than you’d ever ordinarily see.” Not surprisingly, King’s Health Partners is affiliated with Britain’s National Health Services.
Newton summarized the rest of Strang’s interview:
The key seems to be treating heroin addiction like any other illness, and then having the patience to see the treatment through – even if that means the government is the drug dealer of choice for months, if not years.
That should comfort British taxpayers, who are shelling out $22,000 per year per addict for the program.
Although Newton mentioned in passing that “the jury is still out on this study as to what it actually does to get people off heroin permanently and get clean,” she cited the study’s claim that the program had reduced “street heroin by three-quarters and the crimes committed in trying to get that drug by two-thirds.”
“Taking heroin off the streets is making a difference,” Newton declared.
But if Newton had given any air time to critics of the program, its faults would have been glaringly obvious.
Susie Squire, the Political Director at the U.K.’s TaxPayers’ Alliance, voiced the worst of it back in Septemper:
Many taxpayers will have a massive problem paying for addicts’ heroin, particularly at a time when the NHS is unable to provide them with doctor’s appointments or life-saving cancer drugs.
This approach also reflects a poverty of ambition, with the Government merely accepting hard drug use and instead of trying to crack down and stamp it out, giving out lethal drugs for free.
Heroin addicts attend a clinic twice a day to inject themselves with diamorphine – the medical term for heroin – in the hope that their addiction will fade away. Some liken the idea to making children available to pedophiles in order to help them overcome their problem.
Reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” a blogger recommended this solution: “Perhaps the children taken off mothers that Barnardos [a UK children's protection service] disapproves of can be given to the kiddy fiddlers and then another problem will be solved.” Another blogger quipped, “If the government gives me money then I promise to stop stealing it.”
Mary Brett, the U.K . representative of Europe Against Drugs, feared that the program “will start with the most hardcore cases, but treatment services will find it easier to just give them a prescription, and more and more will be included in this scheme.”
Indeed, Russia, which has a notorious drug reputation, refuses to even consider implementing the program, stating that methadone – the heroin substitute used to wean addicts – “could seep into the black market, given the high level of corruption at many Russian clinics.”
Proponents of the program argue that, since it began in 2005, it has been extraordinarily successful in fighting illegal drug rings and drug related crimes. Of course it’s rarely mentioned that the program only involved 127 heroin addicts. Theodore Dalrymple, a diehard critic of “drug maintenance programs” and author of “Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy,” said:
The patients are self-selected: they have some motivation to change, otherwise they would not have attended the clinic in the first place. Only a minority of addicts attend, and therefore it is not safe to conclude that, if other addicts were to receive methadone, their criminal activity would similarly diminish.
In fact, the study’s coordinators had difficulty recruiting volunteers because the eligibility criteria and demands of the program were so stringent.
Furthermore, Dalrymple suggested that the real difference between the before and after crime rate could be “considerably less” because “the patients have an incentive to exaggerate it to secure the continuation of their methadone.”
As proof, other countries that have implemented similar programs with larger groups have reported little if any success. Neil McKeganey, of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, pointed out that in Scotland 22,000 people are on methadone but there has been no “linked reduction in crime or in the deaths of addicts.”
Even parts of England that have participated in drug maintenance programs have failed to improve. For example, in Liverpool 2,000 people are prescribed methadone for their drug addictions but it’s still the world capital of drug-motivated burglary.
In fact, the program could actually do more harm than good. A shocking 2007 Justice Department study discovered that buprenorphine – another opium derivative that was being used to treat heroin addicts in prison – became the third drug of choice for addicts after marijuana and heroin itself. Similar studies discovered that buprenorphine was 15 times as addictive as heroin.
But even if the program isn’t helping drug abusers kick their habits, the government argues that at least it’s having a big impact on crime … or is it? The British government views an addict as “a person who is ill, like someone with pneumonia, whom it is the duty of the system – the paraphernalia of doctors, nurses, social workers, drug counselors and so forth – to cure.” Therefore, the government believes that if it gives addicts free needles, then they won’t “steal, rob, and burgle.” But the premise is wrong.
The majority of heroin addicts already had an extensive criminal record before they tried heroin for the first time. In other words, criminality is more likely to cause addiction than addiction is to cause criminality.
So if this program doesn’t cure addicts and it doesn’t prevent crime, what other options are there?
First, drug addiction needs to be viewed as a choice, not an illness. Mao Zedong, the former leader of China, cured 20 million opium addicts over just one weekend by announcing that anyone still addicted would be shot on Monday. Dalrymple gave a less extreme example with the “huge numbers of American servicemen addicted … to heroin during the Vietnam war.” He said:
Almost all of them gave up spontaneously soon after their return to the US, and two years later their rate of addiction was no higher than that among drafted conscripts who never made it to Vietnam because the war ended.
And addiction doesn’t come from a one-time adventure, or even a few episodes. In fact, addicts usually spend a year intermittently using heroin before they decide to use it regularly.
Addiction is a choice, and with that choice, the responsibility falls on the addicts – not the government – to walk away from that disastrous life. Perhaps that’s why drug abstinence programs are more successful than drug maintenance programs. The addict has made the choice and “maintaining” even small doses of the drug isn’t acceptable.
It’s hard to believe that with this much information easily accessible via Internet that CNN could present even a small portion of the other side of the story.

Source: www.newsbusters.org 14th Oct.2009

NDPA COMMENT
The following item on BBC Online (Newsbeat) 13th July has a spokesperson from the Department of Health declaring that “The government has invested £406 million for drug treatment in 2009/10, of which £24.7 million is available to support young people’s treatment,” … And yet the only residential rehab in the country for those age under 18, Middlegate Lodge, is fighting closure for lack of funds. ‘Treatment’ in the UK often means methadone maintenance (useless for cocaine addiction) or counselling sessions for a few weeks – also useless if the young person is still living in the same area and meeting the same using friends. The Department of Health and the National Treatment Agency need to seriously re-consider ‘treatment’ – and not only for young people – and to seriously invest in more effective drug prevention.

Cocaine A&E cases hit record high
Seventeen people a week are now being admitted to accident and emergency departments after taking cocaine, according to official government figures seen by Newsbeat.

More than one million people regularly use cocaine in the UK
Doctors treated 894 people in England for a “cocaine-induced health emergency” in 2007/8, compared with 740 in 2006/7 and just 448 in 2003/4.
The total number of people taken to hospital after using any type of illegal drug has risen 45% in five years to 9,543, according to the figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats.

“These statistics are really shocking,” said the Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb. The price of cocaine has come down significantly but at the same time it has also [become] chic. That hides the massive health risks.”

Health problems
More than one million people regularly use cocaine in the UK – more than any other European country – according to the UN’s latest report.

Snorting the drug in large or strong quantities often leads to hallucinations and disorientation. At the extreme end “cocaine poisoning” can occur where the user starts fitting and vomiting.
Cocaine use also constricts blood vessels and can result in a rise in body temperature, burst blood vessels and, in some cases, death from brain seizures, heart failure and respiratory problems.
Research in the medical journal Circulation suggests that up to 25% of heart attacks in people under 30 can be blamed on regular cocaine use, instead of the more typical coronary artery disease.
John, not his real name, from Northampton told Newsbeat he collapsed in a pub after months of serious cocaine use.
“I had bought coke that day and had been using it. As the night went on I got more paranoid to the point where not a lot was making sense. That’s when the anxiety set in,” he said.
“I remember getting up and thinking I need to get out and within five steps I collapsed and started having fits on the floor. It felt as if I was being kicked to pieces on the ground.”
“I can’t remember a great deal from that evening. I went straight to hospital and was seen by the mental assessment team and that is when I realised I needed to change my life.”

Falling price, growing use
Doctors say the falling price of cocaine means users are more likely to take larger amounts on a night out, increasing the risk of an accidental overdose. The average street price of the drug is now down to £42 a gram – partly because it is increasingly cut with other chemicals – according to the charity DrugScope.

That could make a line more dangerous as people either react badly to the cutting agent or get used to the low purity making them more vulnerable if they accidentally come across a strong batch.
The government’s drug advisors warned last year that they are seeing more cases of young people ending up in hospital after snorting lines of MDMA – or powdered ecstasy – thinking it was cocaine.
Kerry, 23, from Kent, told Newsbeat she had a couple of bad nights on coke before deciding to stop taking the drug for good.
“I was doing too much of it. I remember being sick a few times and eventually I was found underneath the building fitting with my eyes rolling up the back of my head,” she told Newsbeat.
“I don’t remember any of it. I just remember waking up with my friends in front of me crying. They wanted to call an ambulance but I just about managed to come round but was hazy for about three days.”

‘Record investment’
Six months later one of Kerry’s best friends died on a night out after taking the drug.
“She hadn’t touched it for a while and then one weekend she got the wrong sort of stuff – which was mixed with MDMA and some other things – and then once it went up her nose it killed her,” she said.
“By the time she got to the hospital it was too late; she died in the ambulance. I was devastated because we both just thought it was a bit of fun and it would never happen to us.”
While government surveys show that drug use as a whole has fallen since records began in 1995, the number of adults taking cocaine has risen from 0.6% in 1994 to 2.3% last year.
A spokesperson for the Department of Heath said tackling drug misuse remains a priority.
“The government has invested £406 million for drug treatment in 2009/10, of which £24.7 million is available to support young people’s treatment,” she said.
“Drugs use amongst young people is actually declining. Thanks to record investment, specialist substance misuse services have expanded greatly and there are now more young people getting treatment.
“This is encouraging and reflects our continuing efforts to tackle drug use amongst young people.”

When it comes to new legislation, David Blunkett’s knee jerks so fast and often that his guide dog might need to wear a riot helmet.
Franz Kafka is alive and well and hiding somewhere in David Blunkett’s office 11 Aug 2004. It is a fair bet that if we had nailed some genuine al-Qaeda operatives, we would have heard about it.
Source: The Times; 13th August 2004

A trend to serving wine in larger glasses has added to public confusion over how much alcohol is safe to drink, the British government said on Monday.

Nearly four out of five British drinkers were unaware that a large glass of wine contains three units of alcohol — the maximum recommended daily limit for women, a Department of Health survey found.

It released the findings as it launched a national advertising campaign – Know Your Limits – to promote alcohol awareness.

“Glass sizes have grown larger and the strength of many wines and beers has increased, so it’s no wonder some of us have lost track of our alcohol consumption,” said Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo.

The government is under pressure to combat rising levels of binge drinking, particularly by young people, blamed for aggravating anti-social behaviour and violence.

The Department of Health is spending £6 million ($11.74 million US) on its awareness campaign, and the Home Office will follow up with a £4 million campaign against binge-drinking next month.

But researchers questioned how much notice young people would take.

Bath University psychologist Andrew Bengry-Howell said he had found that young people took no account of unit limits.

“Monitoring your drinking in that way went totally against their objective, which was primarily to go out and get drunk,” he told the BBC.

The government says women should drink no more than 2-3 units of alcohol a day, while the daily limit for men is 3-4 units, the equivalent of 1.5 pints of medium strength beer.

Its survey found that three-fifths of women were aware of their guideline, compared to just half of men.

The government used to publish recommended weekly limits, but changed to a daily measure after it found many people were storing up their quota for the weekend.

It said drinkers regularly downing more than the advised limit greatly increase their risk of contracting illnesses such as liver disease, mouth cancer and stroke.

The awareness campaign includes a website – https://www.nhs.uk/units – with a downloadable alcohol units calculator.

Source:   www.ReutersLife.com  May 2008

A personal view by David Raynes

The background to and an account of the hearing, in London on 5th February 2008, of evidence to the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. It met to take this evidence on re-classifying cannabis to Class B from C under the UK system.

There is surely hardly an observer of drug politics in the world who does not know that the UK, four years ago, surprisingly downgraded cannabis from B to C, under our A to C classification system of potential harm, (also used to establish social sanctions against use & trafficking). With only a short debate in parliament, the issue was driven through by Home Secretary David Blunkett (now out of government) who had only weeks before, entered the UK Home Office as the responsible Minister.  The issue was noticed and claimed around the world as a victory for the drug legalisation lobby who clearly thought this was a step on the way to their nirvana of legal dope for all. Such an action would have been unthinkable for Blunkett’s predecessor Jack Straw (still in Government). Perhaps Prime Minister Blair took his eye off the domestic ball; bogged down over Iraq, he gave Blunkett his way while apparently we are now told, “having real doubts” himself. Thus are we governed.

The downgrading reverberated around and beyond the English speaking world; such is the power of the internet.  Some lobbyists lied about it, saying the UK had made cannabis legal. It had not, it had messed up, confusing the anti-use message and, strangely, had to put up the penalties for trafficking all Class C drugs because Blunkett had apparently not appreciated his proposed action held the danger of making Cannabis trafficking a minor crime compared to tobacco trafficking. Politically unsustainable. He swears now to this writer he had no external influences on him. Foreign readers may not know he is blind. Does his denial of external influence during his arrival briefing and subsequently before his announcement, sound credible?

Cannabis downgrading (and ultimately legalisation) had been heavily pushed in the UK, since the mid 90s, by a small but noisy, largely London based, media lobby. The downgrading and even legalisation issue was taken to the heart of an educated elite, perhaps fearful their kids might get arrested for pot smoking and not overly concerned about the wider social consequences of cannabis use, especially on the socially disadvantaged.

The statutory body that advises government on drugs, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) had also advanced the downgrading issue. A report from the “Police Foundation” (not much to do with the Police) led by Baroness Runciman also contributed to this new golden age of pro-pot haze and muddled thinking. A current Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London, then a senior Policeman, made his own timely contribution by announcing the relaxing of the policing of cannabis the day before a pro-pot march. The scene was set. South London lapsed into a drugs no-mans land of dealers in all illegal substances. Great work! Really helpful to anxious parents. A real mess of confusing signals.

A couple of oddball Chief Constables added their pro-drugs bit and in all the UK parliamentary parties there were similar odd (but minority) contributors to the general nonsense. None of these people thinking through exactly how this idea would further damage Britain’s already bad drug using culture. Rank and file Police Officers, the key top scientists and many experienced drug workers, of course opposed the changes but were ignored. David Blunkett astonishingly refused to see six top scientists & doctors who strongly opposed his downgrading.

The UK continued to develop one of the biggest drug problems in Europe. We have difficulties with all drugs, legal or illegal. In a separate earlier action in 1999, focussing on “the drugs that cause most harm” (I always wonder who thought up that phrase), UK Customs had stopped targeting cannabis imports and the UK was flooded with the stuff, much of it Moroccan Cannabis Resin and according to users, of poor quality. The price after 2000 dropped as supplies increased, “Blunkett’s Blunder” in downgrading took effect three years later.  “Age of first use” dropped alarmingly as did “age of first regular use”. Reportedly, kids–often pre teen were/are using cannabis on the way to school, at school and on their way home. The effect of this is that these kids become un-teachable, discipline breaks down, they fail academically, some drop out of education, they are forever damaged. Many, too many, become mentally ill, some diagnosed psychotic, others below formal diagnosis as mentally ill, are nevertheless unable to really contribute to society and cause huge distress to their families. The unemployment or mentally disabled register looms for many, their jobs taken by educated hard-working Poles and others from Eastern Europe. The government becomes seriously worried. Alarm bells ring in the Department of Social Security and in the Department of Health, both now picking up the pieces of the very wrong Home Office policy. The downgrading policy is looking expensive and socially damaging.

Out on the streets, the imported poor quality cannabis resin was gradually replaced by home grown and Dutch “sinsemilla” or “skunk” cannabis, this getting progressively stronger but strength alone being only one of several contributing factors to damage. Frequency of use and age of first use is also important, and, in the view of this writer, so is the different ratio of THC to CBD in this new fresh, home grown “super-weed”. The belief is that CBD moderates the effect of THC on the brain.

A new Home Secretary, (Blunkett having left government), took over and anxiously asked the ACMD for advice – yet again, on cannabis classification. The ACMD resorted to “return-to-sender” for this enquiry after a half-hearted review where, according to inside information, there was no vote merely a decision by the Chairman, Sir Michael Rawlins and a round the table “chat”. Dissent in the ACMD, is not encouraged our spies tell us; the ACMD members, all of them, have only negligible knowledge of the drugs market. The self-selection of new members keeps out those who oppose liberalisation so plainly, the internal debate is and can only be, very one-sided.  Perhaps the Home Office should ensure more balance?

No change then, the cannabis problem for teenagers and pre-teens gets worse. In 2007 the spin doctors and even Ministers take comfort in figures from the British Crime Survey which shows a slight reduction in cannabis use at ages 16 to 24. No one other than this writer mentions this is simply because cannabis for older young people is becoming unfashionable and gets replaced by cocaine, crack-cocaine and (particularly) gross & physically damaging alcohol consumption. Government has allowed 24 hour alcohol licensing despite widespread public concern.  Cocaine use in the UK has also zoomed up. The infection spreads to Ireland, that society develops a similar drug habit.

The regular discovery of organised Cannabis Farms, a new phenomenon in the UK (although known elsewhere, for example in Canada) and an entire new industry in the UK since “Blunkett’s Blunder”, goes unexplained, Cannabis use is down we are emphatically told. When this writer challenges this and points to the farms, one joker (A Professor and a pro-pot lobbyist) suggests the UK is a substantial exporter of cannabis. A statement that defies belief, there is no evidence of such a thing, not substantial anyway. Things are spiralling out of control. Britain is a nation of sick young people; drugs of all sorts are cheaper than ever, youth is more affluent than ever. Prime Minister Tony Blair, architect of “Blair’s Britain” and now being blamed for “Blair’s Feral Youth” is forced from office in the autumn of 2007, largely over Iraq and his handling of the Middle East but his party and most other people are basically just sick of him. This writer tells the media that the cannabis market has widened and deepened, the totality of use is higher. If it is not, where is the output of the cannabis farms going?

A new broom and a largely new group of Government Ministers take over in autumn 2007. Gordon Brown as new Prime Minister is a dour Scot, son of a church Minister he sets a different social tone to Blair and just maybe, has more integrity and social conscience. Consideration is suddenly being given to abandoning plans for giant casinos; 24 hour drinking is being reviewed, so is cannabis policy. Brown appoints a new Home Secretary, Jacquie Smith, first woman in that position. She is a self confessed experimenter with pot at University but all credit to her, she and Brown, together, take a different tone on drugs issues. She is after all a mum and mums (good for them) are driving a new national wave of sustained protest about kids being mentally damaged by pot. Brown signals he is minded to re grade cannabis to where it was, back to Class B, ending the confusion and sending clear messages about the harms. Smith refers the issue once again, back to the ACMD. The implication, clear beyond any doubt, is that Brown and Smith want, and will have, cannabis re-graded even if the ACMD do not support it. On the fringes of the ACMD there are dark mutterings about resignations if their views are ignored. Some observers may think that would be a good thing.

So we arrive at 5th February 2008. The ACMD is forced; reluctantly it seems, to hold some of its hearings in public (why not all in public you might ask-Parliament is after all in public). It arranges a one day hearing in the City of London. Public access is limited because numbers are limited and prior application and approval are needed.  Questions to witnesses by members of the public are strictly forbidden though there is a short public comment/question session at the end.

Chairman Sir Michael Rawlins runs a tight ship, ACMD members call him “Sir”, he calls them by their first names. Very few ACMD members ask questions. Of those that do the most active seem to do it to show how clever they are, not, particularly, to illuminate the real issues. We get no indication or feel for what most members think at all. There is a pre-occupation with the penalties for drugs use & possession, not the science and social science of harm-potential and the actuality in the country. Arguably the very things that should most concern this committee. Astonishing.

Early witnesses from the Forensic Science Service and GW Pharmaceuticals confirm that herbal cannabis seizures (home grown) in the UK, are gradually getting much stronger in THC and that this new form of the drug contains hardly any CBD, leaving the effects of strong THC unconstrained. Resin we are told, long the staple of the UK market, is declining in market share and historically had almost equal amounts of THC & CBD. More work is needed on the issue of CBD but it is plain that by selection, a much higher THC-containing product is gradually taking over the market. It will continue to do so. Other academic witnesses on the potential mental health effects tell us that CBD may be “anti-psychotic”. The absence of CBD may therefore be aggravating the mental damage from the stronger THC. The new selected cannabis may be two or three times stronger, certainly not the 10 or 20 times of the tabloid press and even some over zealous commentators on my side of the debate. Cannabis is not homogeneous and techniques are available in the market to sieve it and extract a higher THC product. The mental health ill effects are more marked in young men; by 2010 cannabis use will be implicated in 25% of schizophrenia cases. Professor Robin Murray has spoken of 1500 cases a year, very expensive to treat and of course this is only the clinically diagnosed.

The most telling early witnesses are from “SANE” & “Rethink”, both mental health charities. Marjorie Wallace from SANE talks of the “confusion about legality & safety” and that cannabis is implicated in 80% of 1st episode psychosis. She says, “Only re-classification can counter the mixed messages”. There is then, an immediate and astonishing outburst from Chairman Sir Michael, angry, venomous, red-faced. (This is a really serious scientific approach, observe and learn I think to myself?) He barks out, “Are you really wanting people to go to prison for five years for possession”?

Any minor confidence one might have had in a dispassionate scientific appraisal, led by Sir Michael at least, surely evaporated. His remarks are nonsense of course and misleading of the ignorant. Sentencing guidelines and historical fact show that imprisonment for just personal use possession, of any illegal drug, hardly occurs in the UK. Why bother with the facts when you are Chairman of such an important meeting, advising government, confident, despite the evidence, that you know best? Does the Home Office know he is behaving like this?

The position of “Rethink” is truly hard to fathom. They accept all the harms of cannabis, indeed they tell us about them, yes they are getting worse but to them, re-classifying so that the public can understand this better, is astonishingly not important. To this observer they seem to have been “got at” by someone, so perverse is their position. Is their funding being threatened if they take a more robust view?  Their position is surely odd especially seen in the light of the remarks by Wallace. This observer smells something very wrong indeed. They are in the same business as SANE, or ought to be. Just what is going on?

Professor Louis Appleby, National Director of Mental Health for the Department of Health gives an impressive presentation, he is clear about the mental harm, we hear of patient suicides and homicides, figures trip out, “68% had taken cannabis”, we (as a society) are “guilty of complacency” (about cannabis), “causal factor”, “benefits from re-classification”, “health perspectives” and much more. Professor Appleby is hugely convincing. He is in no doubt at all that re-classification is needed. One is encouraged that here, at last, we have a public servant being so clear about what is needed and why.

Another presentation about the physical harms is convincing that in cannabis there are all the harms of tobacco and more. Talk of head & throat cancers, early emphysema etc. A second presentation about cannabis & driving illuminates the fact that cannabis is now by far the most common drug found in those arrested under the Road Traffic Act. Cannabis influenced drivers exhibit “poor road tracking” & “divided attention”.

Debra Bell of the “Talking about Cannabis” mum’s pressure group then speaks, together with another mum, an anonymous Barrister, whose own family life, like Debra’s has been severely and permanently damaged by teenage cannabis use. Promising young people damaged mentally and permanently, we are told. Educational under-achievement, wasted years. We are told of the thousands of hits on Debra’s website, the families feeling “let down” by government and the ACMD, the widespread feeling that cannabis use has become acceptable and that parents and teachers were undermined by Blunkett’s downgrading.  Debra tells of the phone calls, parents at their wits-end, desperate and helpless in the face of kids who say cannabis is not so bad, “the government downgraded, it must be OK”. Some kids who even think it is legal. These mums must really worry Prime Minister Brown. These are articulate and educated people, they are not going to give up. They are also voters. These are the people we need to take the campaign against cannabis use forward. They bring a new focus to the battle.

Ms Cindy Burnett. Representing the Magistrates Association & Youth Courts. She is very convincing, she and colleagues are “worried about the message”, “downgrading sent the wrong message”, “caused confusion”, “unnecessary”, “poor effect on health”, “increased addiction”, (youthful) “addiction to cannabis”, “downgrading had a bad effect”, “shoplifting driven by drug addiction” (cannabis), “wrong in principle”, “badly handled”, “downward spiral”, need for Youth courts to be supportive. All strong stuff. The ACMD listen in silence, are they taking it in? Who knows?

A few government apparatchiks from the Home Office talk about their wonderful publicity campaign, they show some clips, fancy indeed but have they worked? How could these adverts turn back the bad effect of downgrading? Like swimming against a strong current. Such stuff keeps people in work but will probably have little effect.

The next speaker is Professor Simon Lenton from the National Drug Research Institute of Australia, his presence confuses, just why is he, particularly him here? I notice he pops up later in the programme again on behalf of The Beckley Foundation, (run by our disgraced ex Deputy Drugs Czar Mike Trace who resigned from the UN when exposed as linked with the George Soros inspired legalisation campaign and “Open Society”). I wonder who has paid Lenton’s fare, was it George? He can afford it. I certainly hope it was not UK public money.

Again, I ponder just why his presence is allowed by Sir Michael.

Lenton is badly briefed about the UK debate and absolutely confused; he addresses us on “The impact of the legislative options for Cannabis”. He seems to think that the lobby against cannabis and for re-classification in the UK is from people who want to “lock users up”; he is more concerned about the social sanctions than about the adverse effects. He does not appear to understand that those who want cannabis upgraded, re-graded to where it historically was, are quite prepared to examine different social sanctions, we know, everyone knows, the UK cannot arrest its way out of our drug problem.  Does he not know the pressure is about putting cannabis back where it belongs? To send a signal about the real harms. To start to change the damaging culture created around use, by the downgrading.

Is Lenton a closet legaliser cloaked in fine words, hiding his real intentions? I “Google” Lenton when I get home and check my files. Yes I thought I had heard of him from Australian friends. As I suspected, keywords, legalisation, Lindesmith, International Harm reduction, support for changes to the UN Drug Conventions etc, need I go on? That and the link with Trace tell me enough.

Does Sir Michael Rawlins understand this chap is a covert pro pot lobbyist? Does the Home Office know the witnesses have been rigged like this?

Steve Rolles from Transform, the UK’s main drug legalisation lobby group (for legalising of all drugs) speaks to us. I know him well and away from this subject can enjoy his company. He is a bright guy. His thunder has been stolen by Lenton he complains! Yes Steve, we are having views like yours laid on pretty thick are we not? Is this deliberate? Is Sir Michael rigging all this stuff, does he understand it? If not him just who is rigging it? Legalisation is not up for discussion any more so just why does Transform get a slot (Debra Bell nearly did not!). Steve though admits “Cannabis is more harmful than we thought”. Well more harmful than you thought Steve, my view has been consistent since I met my first pot-heads in the 60s. My allies have always said Blunkett got it wrong, indeed the World Health Organisation indicated the mental harms of pot in its 1997 report.  Rolles advises the ACMD to concentrate on a “Scientific Harm Assessment”. Yes, I can live with that; as long as they take in all harm not just harm to the individual. Yes and they should remember that defining the social penalties for use or trafficking are not what they (the ACMD) are about, leave that to others. Rawlins passion about that penalty issue nags at me.

Do the ACMD silent members (maybe most of them) know they are being manipulated? Again, does the Home Secretary know about this? This loading the witnesses with legalisers when that is not on any agenda is surely verging on the corrupt. No wonder they want to keep out those of a different view. I reflect that it is apparent there are at least two other days of private hearings, just who are this group listening to then?  Would a “Freedom of Information” request flush it out? Can Jacquie Smith just ask? Will she? Perhaps, I muse, she will if she gets a copy of my note.

The penultimate speaker is Simon Byrne Assistant Chief Constable Merseyside Police. He is the Association of Chief Police Officers lead on cannabis. He is a reassuring and sensible figure, ACPO have changed their view, they are seeing the problems with youngsters on the ground, and, picking up the pieces. He is also not interested in locking youngsters up; he wants early intervention, guidance to youngsters and strong signals sent out that use is potentially very damaging. Byrne tells us there have been 2000 cannabis farms found in England & Wales in the last few years since downgrading, that this is a huge new criminal industry since “Blunketts Blunder” (though he does not call it that). Illegal immigrants, often Vietnamese are involved; it is taking up lots of police time. UK based readers may remember downgrading was partly sold as saving police time.  Byrne speaks of confused public views on cannabis; he and his colleagues are now strongly for re-classification to B. Re-classification would reinforce the perceptions of harm. Is anyone listening?

Next witness is Lenton again, this time on behalf of Beckley Foundation.  “Is cannabis use a contributory cause of psychosis”? He is reading a presentation prepared by Wayne Hall & Robin Room.  Yes it is a cause, and more, 1 in 10 users become dependent. Really? Age of first use is important. Well we agree. We just do not agree on a part of the solution, telling the public the truth by classifying the cannabis in the right place.

There is a brief open forum, I manage to chide Lenton for his ignorance about the reasons behind the desire for re classification, I speak about parents and supporting them, telling the truth about cannabis, there is applause from some of the public.  An ACMD member says they are not forgetting the individual sad cases they have heard about (from the mums), he looks at me, he is, I think, defensive, a man with a conscience. I remind the ACMD that Robin Murray’s 1500 schizophrenia cases a year are the tip of an iceberg, there are a quarter of a million people under 35 unable to work and claiming sickness benefits through mental illness, often associated with drug use.  There are thousands of others not in the statistics because their illness is not clinically diagnosed; the prisons are full of those who are said to be mentally ill.

A few other speakers, first a mum, then a legalise cannabis advocate, and more, it comes to an end. It is over. Lenton follows me and speaks to me outside. He is uneasy and edgy.  We debate changing the UN conventions, he wants it, I do not. The best kept international conventions of all I say. Their strength is in the fact that everyone keeps to them. I know but he appears not to, that the UK Government has explicitly said it wishes no change in the conventions. He wants “more freedom for States to do their own thing”. What are those things I say, what can states not do that you want them to do? We in the UK have prescribed heroin for years to a minority of users, the British system. He struggles to answer. He wants the Dutch to be able to deal with and control, (legitimise he means), their cannabis growers. Why I ask? Do neighbours want that? Does he not understand that one European country can not do that independently of the rest? Do the Dutch, most of them, even want that? (We know from an opinion poll that 70% do not want it). I remind him that Dutch drug policy has made the Netherlands, which is a first world country and economy, have a third-world drugs manufacturing, warehousing and distribution problem. Astonishing levels of drugs based criminality feeding ATS (amphetamine type substances) to the whole world, including Australia. He has no other ideas when challenged. He is plainly not used to being properly challenged. Why is someone with his views here, in this meeting, priming people who are going to advise our government? Who invited him?

As I travel home, I reflect, we have heard very strong messages about the harms of cannabis, is the ACMD about to change its position? I very much doubt it. They seem to be set in their ways, closed off to the harms, controlled tightly by Rawlins, most of them not taking part in the debate. I remember the question “do users mix cannabis with tobacco”. Quite extraordinary, he is in another world.

We have though, I think, seen the cannabis legalisation argument holed below the waterline; they will keep trying but that legalisation debate is surely over in the UK. If it is really over here perhaps it will be over everywhere else. What happens in the UK is of enormous influence because of the English language and the Internet.

Will UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacquie Smith re classify cannabis even if the ACMD is not with them? Yes probably. They will have the support of most MPs; the Conservative parliamentary opposition is supporting it. Even some important Liberal Democrats including the then leader (our third party) who have historically been weak and wrong on drug policy have been seen at Debra Bell’s meetings, that is really good. They are also getting the cannabis harm message.  Drug Policy is best when all parties are in broad agreement. Britain’s drug policy failure can I think, be tracked back to the breaking of that unanimity in the mid 90s.

Prime Minister Brown has “made his views clear” on cannabis, he said that this week at “Prime Ministers Questions” in the House of Commons. Brown has widely been accused by his opponents of dither and “government by review”, of putting off decisions. On this I think, based on the evidence, he means business.

David Raynes. February 2008
Executive Councillor, National Drug Prevention Alliance UK
Member, International Task force on Strategic Drug Policy

The public health impact of the Government’s decision to downgrade cannabis is disclosed today in official figures showing a 50 per cent rise in the number of people requiring medical treatment after using the drug.

Since cannabis was downgraded from a Class B to a Class C drug, the number of adults being treated in hospitals and clinics in England for its effects has risen to more than 16 500 a year. In addition, the number of children needing medical attention after smoking the drug has risen to more than 9 200.

Almost 500 adults and children are treated in hospitals and clinics every week for the effects of cannabis.  Its health toll is revealed in official data compiled by health authorities and obtained by The Daily Telegraph.

Drug campaigners last night said the figures proved Labour’s decision to reclassify cannabis in January 2004, which made the penalties for its possession less severe, was badly mistaken and had sent out the wrong signals about it being a “soft” drug.  Doctors say cannabis abuse can contribute to mental health problems including forms of psychosis, paranoia and schizophrenia. There can be harmful physical side-effects, disrupting blood pressure and exacerbating heart and circulation disorders.

The data will add to the pressure on Gordon Brown to reverse its reclassification when a review of the decision by Home Office scientific advisers concludes in the Spring.  Elizabeth Burton-Phillips, a leading campaigner on drug issues since her son, Nick Mills, killed himself in despair at his addiction four years ago, said: “These results are shocking and dreadful. What more evidence do you need? You cannot sweep this under the carpet any longer. Children have to be told of the dangers of this what is wrongly called a soft-drug. It is extremely dangerous and it is destroying healthy, young minds.”

James Clappison, a Conservative member of the Commons home affairs committee, said: “The reclassification of cannabis sent the wrong message and was clearly the wrong decision. These figures show the evident dangers of cannabis abuse and support the case for the drug being restored to Category B.”  The health authority figures show that 16 685 adults were treated by English hospital trusts after abusing cannabis in 2006-07. The previous year, it was 14 828 – up from 11 057 in 2004-05.

The data also shows that the number of children treated for using cannabis has risen from 8 014 in 2005-06 to 9 259 last year. In total, 25 944 people were treated for cannabis use last year – around 498 a week. In addition, around 70 000 people are treated for mental disorder as outpatients each year.

The figures suggest health authorities are treating more people for cannabis abuse than there are patients who have heart bypass operations or treatment for colon cancer. Some 21 000 people a year have a bypass operation and colon cancer is contracted by some 22 000 people a year.

Downgrading cannabis to a Class C drug placed it alongside steroids and some prescription anti-depressants. Possession of them can lead to a two-year prison sentence, but charges are rarely brought against people found with small quantities of such drugs.  Class B drugs however, include more dangerous substances such as amphetamines. People found in possession of Class B drugs can face a five-year jail term and an unlimited fine.

There is no “substitute medication” available to treat cannabis problems, so the majority of National Health Service treatment is carried out by psychiatrists, therapists and counsellors. The independent review into its reclassification, by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, was prompted by growing concern about the increasing prevalence of new high-strength forms of cannabis. So-called “super-skunk” leaves can be twice as potent as more traditional cannabis resin.

Advocates of downgrading or legalising cannabis say the risks are low compared to those of alcohol and tobacco. Some sufferers of chronic conditions like multiple sclerosis say the drug provides vital pain relief.

Many doctors say the risks outweigh the benefits, and the British Medical Association yesterday said the latest treatment figures strengthened its opposition to the decision to downgrade the drug.  A BMA spokesman said: “This is drug that is mostly smoked, so that can cause lung damage and cancer. There are also concerns about the potential negative effect cannabis has on users’ psychiatric state.”

Addaction, a charity that treats people with drug problems, warned that children suffered particularly from cannabis abuse. “Young people often use cannabis at crucial development stages in their lives, and it does have serious impacts on mental health and physical development,” a spokesman said.

Last night, the Department of Health insisted that the rising numbers of treatments reflect improvements in drug treatment and not rising cannabis use.  However, the department also announced yesterday that the budget for the National Treatment Agency, which co-ordinates drug treatment, will be frozen at 2007 levels for the next three years. The agency will also be expected to find “efficiency savings” of £50 million a year from its £398 million annual budget.

Despite the freeze in his budget, Paul Hayes, the head of the agency, insisted that the number of drug treatments it can fund will rise.  “By becoming more efficient at delivering the best outcomes for individuals we will be able to continue to increase the number of people into treatment, while increasing treatment effectiveness,” he said.

Andrew Lansley, the Conservative health spokesman, said Labour was wasting vast amounts of money. “The Government is ignoring the fact that its drug treatment policy is fundamentally misguided. Conservatives have promised to introduce abstinence-based treatment for drug addicts to help them get off drugs for good,” he said.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk  13th Jan 2008