Outrage in Cambridge!

[campanula]

Skunkworks, well done. Our isolation because of prejudice is one of the reasons why we have been often fobbed off with humiliating practices - For example, I had a short spell of collecting my prescription from Boots but was horrified to have to sign a contract guaranteeing my 'good behaviour'. What other section of patients have to jump through this hoop - none. Whilst I was prepared to see it from Boots point of view, it was the assumption that I would, at some future date, unless warned, possibly have a tantrum or shout abuse or otherwise engage in some sort of anti-social behaviour. Now, if I had actually done any of these things, then it might have been an understandable action to protect Boots workers and other customers, but to simply presume that, as an addict, I am incapable of civil behaviour, it is quite galling. So yes, Skunkworks, I do commend your bravery in speaking out and only when we have spokespeople who do not fulfill tabloid perceptions of some wasted, filthy, inarticulate rambling thief, will we be able to hold our heads up and demand the same rights as other patients/customers/clients or whatever, in the health system.

However, there is also a disturbing undercurrent in that we are having to prove our worthiness to be treated as human beings. For instance, I am educated and literate but that in no way excuses the behaviour of SP's and other health professionals from treating me differently from a service user who is less able to make use of resources such as the internet and the Alliance.  The lowest, most mumbling unwashed recidivist must  recieve as good a level of treatment as anyone else. So while we must continue to fight on behalf of ourselves and friends and families, we must not engage in some sort of self congratulatory 'i am doing alright. mate' type response (I have certainly been guilty of this myself) or position ourselves as somehow more deserving of consideration. This is going to be an ongoing battle and the sooner we do get organised, the better or we will continue to be held in contempt by many of these so-called professionals.

Last May, most of us were paralysed with shock and fear - it took a good couple of months before any of us got ourselves into a place where we could attempt any sort of refutation - not helped by the obtuse responses from our SP (the varied, and now shown to be untrue reasons for the enforced changes to long-standing scripts). It frightens me that we only became organised through the merest stroke of luck - we were certainly given absolutely no help from anyone within Addaction apart from being told essentially we just had to 'suck it up'. So, Skunkworks, you are NOT alone and you do not have to take this battle on alone - there are always dissenters to proposed policies and now, right now, at a moment of political fluidity, there does remain a possibility of change. Write to your MP, write to your patients ombudsman, do you have a local Drug and Alcohol team? write to them. Yes, it takes energy, which is often in short supply, but hey, throw a message in a bottle out there - something will find a target. We are not out of the woods yet but we have engaged a wider audience than the cabal behind our SP and ultimately, even the most cynical and jaded politico may take some grain of sense and reason from our pleas that we do know what we need and we have to be trusted, as anyone else is, to deal with our situation without more humiliating supervised swigging, nightmare pharmaciy workers, disbelieving GPs and poorly informed health workers. Good Luck, Chin Up.

[campanula]

ooops, sorry, 60degrees North, it is YOU i am sending all thoughts and good wishes too, Keep on keeping on and so on, and well done for putting yourself on the line - we have to stand up and be counted at some time and the sooner perceptions are challenged, the better for all of us.

[derek d j]

[quoteauthor=campanula link=topic=2115.msg11141#msg11141 date=1283439348]
  we have prised open a tiny chink in drug treatment orthodoxy, and as such, we are going to seize upon this chance to actually have a truthful and meaningful dialogue as opposed to the usual dance of fear, power relations and ideology.  So speak out, all of you out there instead of simmering about worse accepting shitty treatment-if you're worth anything, so's your voice.  Use it!
[/quote]

You don't argue with sister campanula.. we in Cambridge have spent a long time in front of mirrors since May.  Are we junk?  We been there, the legal economic and social shit laid on us by criminalisation gave us plenty knowledge of our inner junkie.  But we thought our scripts had longago sorted all that out and we were now citizens.  Of course, we've done things wrong but killing us off as mental or moral defectives seemed a bit steep;  repeated assertion we'd "be grateful later" wore a bit thin, and were forced to look at the junkie in our would-be betterers.  Quel horreur!  We might have justified the odd bit of thievery or emotional dishonesty but, man, these peoples' denial mechanism beats anything I ever saw on the street.
As addicts, we tend to think we're at fault; its a sight easier when we are.  Getting a simple head around "war for peace" and mortals playing God is heavy.
We have to 'prove' our worth on ill-defined social grounds; why?  Is there a plan to get rid of all the rubbish and leave the underclass to its own devices?
If the addict is an obvious first target, its up to addicts to be comfortable with their worth, and to howl protest.
We do not aim to be good jews and hope for a billet in Therienstat rather than tougher compulsory rehab centres in the east.  Holocaust comparisions are not to cheapen ethnic sufferings but Goebbel's successors use hi-tech 'Big Lie' techniques to fool whole populations.  When we're a bit"junk sick" it all appears somehow connected to our small, individual circumstances.
We look after one another and wonder where the £3-5 government coughs up annually for our care is actually going.
We look to the uncorrupted individuals within the existing 'power structures' to look to themselves and ask what the hell is going on.
We start with ourselves and work outwards.  The odds at times seem overwhelming but we rely on British common sense and that all the people cant be fooled all the time.  The consequences of 40 years of 'madness' drug treatment poilicies are there for all to see, and we wonder why the 'terrorrise and punish' squad can still dare to claim credibilty.  Really, they should be in the dock at The Hague.
So, chaps and chapesses, if after a good look you decide you're not junk, put your best boots on and straighten out every example of open or implied 'addict discrimniation' you see.  Now.   If you don't stand up for yourselves, nobody else will.
It seems it's down to the addicts of the world to kick out the junkies.  A tip of a battered hat to those like campanula who've started the process.  
Have we any chance?







 

[Fluoro]

I too had 2 sign a behaviour contract when I first went to my current pharmacy (national supermarket)..There was about 15 conditions that I had 2 abide by,one was that I cant go into the store with anyone,but to be fair to them they always treat me with respect-maybe thats because I always treat them the same..

[OP8S]

It seems to me like this is turning into more of a class war than just the corrupt powers that be clamping down on maintainence prescribing. Newsnight Scotland were reporting last night that the politicians are trying to pass a bill to make a minimum charge on alcohol of 45p/unit. This may seem at first to be quite a responsible action to take as alcohol abuse/ or alcohol related incidents costing our precious NHS far more than any other form of substance abuse. It was only when they actually applied this minimum charge to different types of alcohol I realised that it was just another tax against the poor, or people who rely on alcohol in the same way that we/I rely on methadone or other opiates.
The cost of a bottle of single malt whisky, which your upper classes may buy remained exactly the same. The cost of a bottle of gut-rotting chemical cider which they themselves would never think of buying, leaving it for the person who suffers from problematic drinking was trebeled!
To top it all, the increase in the pricing was not in itself a tax which would benefit the Government & could be passed onto the NHS. All the extra £'s are just going to go into the pockets of the greedy businessmen & supermarkets. This is really starting to scare me now, I have & always will reserve the right to put whatever substance I want into my body to help me along in this reality which is imposed upon us but it appears that we are going down the road in which only those that can afford it are trusted to use/abuse whatever substance they want to.
If these people succed in their (at best) misinformed policies then not only will every heroin dealer notice an increase in business but they will find another increase in backstreet distilleries producing dangerously strong booze. Prohabition of any substance has always failed & just put it in the hands of the criminal underground which in turn criminalizes the users. Is this how they intend to kick-start the economy?! It's part of human nature to want to experience changes of your conciousness & for the majority of us our conciousness is all we have that we have total control of. I cant bear the thought of living in a country where everybody is expected to be straight the whole time. The word "abstinence" & "recovery" is being quoted far to often for my liking recentley.
I apologise if this has been a bit of a rant but it is not just us opiate users that seem to becoming under attack, It appears to becoming a bit of a class war now.

[derek d j]

Spot on, 60 degrees, we do indeed seem to be in the vanguard of some form of "class war".  We too rant.  But maybe the need now is to work out what we can do about it.  Its only sanity, innit?   

[derek d j]

 It's cold and raining and winter approaches.  The Affair of the Cambridge Injectables affects every user from Aberdeen to Abergaveny and shouldn't slip into the oblivion of Page 2.
 Its nearly five months now since our dsp made its unilateral decision of blanket withdrawal.   Traditionally, people diagnosed with terminal illlness go through three stages - denial, despair and finally resigned acceptance.   We certainly went through the first two and they're not a lorra laffs.  But a number of ageing but perfectly healthy users couldn't understand why they'd so casually been handed an effective death sentence and plain refused to lie down or pretend otherwise.  
 Now we seek to awake a sleeping tiger of sanity.
 It transpired the original DAAT/NTA mandate was to review the 27 (nobody knows what became of the other 2) injectable users in the county to ensure they hadn't simply been parked on their scripts and abandoned.  This was quite reasonable.  How it translated into enforced detoxification of all "on cost grounds" remains a mystery.
 After meeting seven complainant users face to face last month, DAAT requested the dsp to suspend all further reductions pending a 2nd psychiatrists opinion.
 Now is limbo time as the logistics and funding are arranged.  We must get by without an average 25% of our handouts but its all very interesting.
 DAAT&NTA were told everyone bar a few stroppy sods had embraced the chance to 'get clean'.  Now half the reductees have joined the official complaint and a very different picture emerges.
 As with user groups everywhere, personality clashes and differences of opinion needed careful reconciliation.  Some just want their own scripts back anywhichway and seek to restate  individual hardships.  Others believe there are important principles involved and look to the bigger picture.  We stick tgether.  Some concerned service employees work for broader mutual understanding and others reiterate their opposing stance; most just want to keep their jobs.
 An ex-user traced the fates of his peers from the seventies, when diamorphine prescriptions were still on offer..  Of 16, one remains in treatment.  One died of overdose, another at his own hand and two of natural causes.  The other eleven, given diamorphine when they wanted it, came off when they wanted to(one to eight years).  In every case, a  change in their life - be it falling in love, job opportunity, improved self-awareness/esteem or simply growing bored with lazing around stoned all day brought a decision to move on.  None needed institutional detox, rehabs or legions of counsellors and all stayed off.
 Now reluctant users are cajoled into the 8day detox centre at Peterborough.  It costs £1000 a day, offers less than a mate with a spare room and half the graduates are back on the corner within the week.  The black market is the help of choice for 95% of 'new' addicts.  The dsp workers mean well but effectively the £3.4 million provided annually for drug treatment is wasted.  Keys are too busy compiling shoplifting statistics to offer much insight or personal invlvement; its a lot easier t kick when you know why you turned to dope in the first place but there's no time for anything real.  Even physiological aspects are poorly understood and the all-important psychology of addiction reduced to a simplistic joke.
 Its bloody madness.   The idea that heroin addicts might benefit from pure, legal heroin isn't seen; nor is the elephant that tramples whole communities.  Few actually want  methadone who aren't already strung out on it.    Illusion is all, statistics are bodged to meet ill-defined targets and user silence allows the deranged a free run.
 No more!  Let's stop the waste of money and addict lives and bring back common sense.  Would you trade your meth script in for diamorphine in a New York second?  Would you benefit more from a little understanding and the chance to look at yourself and the reasons for your addiction than from methadone, monitoring and the fear?   Might you too, like the Cambridge group of the 70s, be more likely to come off under your own steam in your own time?
 Its a fantastic story how methadone was foisted onto The British System.  A fundamentalist mindset saw euphoria as somehow diabolical and sought to remove the devil's medicine from the legal menu.  Thus they let the devils in, and billionaire drug traders now run states.  Hundreds of thousands of beautiful lives have been victim of puritan fantasies in the UK alone.  The rise of the Big Four charity sps is a story of expansion to near-monopoloy status by earnest intent, determination and default of contrary voice.
 No more!  We're all normal and want our freedom.  We don't exist solely to keep unemployed social workers in useless work or to suffer further for a bankrupt ideology.  We don't need to be monitored and treated like habitual pedophiles.  Is there another minority anywhere that would put up with it?
 Diamorphine, as the Lib Dems pointed out in their recent fringe meeting, is available at a fifth the cosat presently paid in the UK and may actually be cheaper than methadone.  We demand an evidence-based treatment system now.  For forty years, the facts have been evermore ludicrously manipulated to fit an idea that has patently failed.  Users like everyone else have been conditioned and bullied int thinking they're rubbish and deserve to be treated as pieces of shit.
 Cant everyone see how silly it all is?   Apparently not all.  The abstentionists are determined to take Cambridge and then the last few remaining bastions of drug treatment sanity.  They seem to think God is on their side and that's that.  From being envy of the world, British drug treatment has become the sick man of Europe.  If the 'harm preventionists' have their way, heroin or anything injectable will be on blackmarket offer only, and users best helped by privatised prisons.
 God help us all unless we now stand up and be counted.  We've taken enough abuse, and need to say why we don't deserve it.  It worked for gays and racial minorities.  Why are we so slow to think we. too, have lives that are worth living?  Can we get loud now?  Proper, open, informed and evidence-based drug treatment  should be ours for the demanding.  If we all holler and scream and rage against the dying of the light.   If not, the last candles will soon be blown out.
 Thanks to all for their messages and support and hi to all. the "hidden" ones.  Now get noisy wherever you are.   As we in Cambridge increasingly appreciate, this isn't just about us and our little scripts.  Addicts have eaten enough shiit for several lifetimes and we demand sanity now.   All together now - no more!

[simon]

Derek,
You have many interesting points but one I will pick up on is that there are no other patients with any chronic condition treated like this. The amount of interference and control is astounding.
The shame is that patients aren't political enough - then why should they need to be?

[msmedusa]

Have you thought about setting up a blog detailing the ins and outs of this?

This is the only place I've heard about the Cambridge 29/27, but I suspect that it would be of wider interest.

[campanula]

funnily enough, have just started the set-up process - now just need to activate brain and bad typing finger!

[MethDeth]

 I totally agree with everything being said on this thread, the only problem I have and maybe many others have is with 'standing up to be counted' - I have guarded my anonymity in my community to the point of almost total paranoia  - I live in a rural setting where everyone knows everyone's business and I've already had a few close shaves in the pharmacy that could have cost me my job and therefore my livelihood;  If I lost this job under a cloud of judgementalism I would have to leave the area and try to start again which I don't think I have the energy left in me to do, and I know my other half wouldn't.   The basis of my problem is that I am a chronic pain sufferer - I have some spinal issues that the methadone I take really helps with forabout 6-8 hours of the day but really I would benefit a lot more from being on MST/MXL or something else that lasted longer than my daily dose of the ghastly green glug.  I am descriminated against because of mistakes I made in my earlier life and I totally agree and understand about that part when Derek DJ says is like ebing treated like a serial paedophile when it comes to levels of control & contact with my SP.  This year I have suffered more pain and have as a result had to increase my dosage in an attempt to control my pain.  I have tried mentioning this to my GP but my bleating is treated with suspicion and although I've been given increases, the result has been increased contact with a next to useless key worker who is merely there to monitor me and after years of having been able to collect 7 doses a week from the pharmacy I now have to consume one dose on collection day which has sent my paranoia sky rocketing.  I've mentioned this to my key worker but it has been met with a complacent refusal.
Anyhow sorry to drift off subject, I just wanted to say how the discriminatory mechanism of suspicion & guilt instillation has affected me personally.  I'd love to get political, I'd love to protest but until I can figure a way of doing this and maintaining my anonymity, I don't feel like there's much I could do. ( this is probably something some of the higher-ups in our opposition is counting on btw)
I feel for what is going on with you guys in Cambridge really and I wish there was some way we could change the public perception of the addict so we weren't all porttrayed by the Daily Mail and other fascist trash publications as that tatoo'd moronic thief who can barely string a sentence together and would sell his own granny into sex slavery for the price of a fix.
I too am a normal & productive member of society, whose life has value.   I am not a criminal in any way shape or form and have never been involved in crime to finance my addiction before I got on MMT.  I'll just leave you to watch this little clip from You Tube - it's how I feel about so many things, and you'll see where I borrowed a couple of words from. - I also feel it has a lot of relevance in the times we now find ourselves having to live in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qgVn-Op7Q

[derek d j]

 Indded, McD, we should've networked decades ago.
 The successfully 'maintained' tend to get as far away from the drug scene as they can - that was the point of treatment.  Sadly, till the demonisation of addiction is corrected, they have to keep stum to keep a decent job.  The only way a 'stand up and be counted' move might work would be for everyone in a responsible position to admit their addictions simaltaneously.  From care assistants to peers of the realm, there are a lot more than is popularly thought and if they all 'came out' on the same day it'd cause quite a splash.
 Cant see it happening somehow.
 Here, we still await the '2nd psychiatrist' opinions; the logistics are complicated and these things take time.  The reductions have been suspended but users must live with those imposed before the DAAT intervention - an average 25% loss.   Users who lived blameless lives for decades now take to darkened rooms after dsp appointments or get drunk and shout in the street.  Its best we keep details of our hurt to ourselves in the interests of conciliation, and hope those with the power are quietly reading the research, their opinions will mellow and individual fates will be determined according to individual facts and not an all-encompassing wishful fantasy.  We accept the dsps denial of any nasty secret agenda and look to the 'better selves' of all concenred to ensure the triumph of simple sense.  Either way, we'll let you know.
 Till then, a booming black market fills the gap for most and its sad to see some users slipping back into bad company and old habits.  Some heroic outta town sympathisers provide prescription bits free or at pp cost to keep the old folk off the corner; they risk gaol for their humanity and it's a crazy world.
 We're also very aware that when such things happened elsewhere we offered nothing beyond meaningless sympathy. We're humbled by the generosity of outside support.  Human beings can inspire as well as induce metapahysical despair and thanks to every one of you.

[simon]

Ahh so you'll have people exiting treatment drug free I imagine as far as NDTMS goes.

[OP8S]

As I have discussed with you before Derek, I think that an excellent way to prove to society that we are just ordinary folks like themselves would be to use an idea pioneered by Howard Marks, that being whenever there is a local election, or even a general election ( though we've just missed our opportunity there) is to put somebody up for election that agrees that we are all ( mostly ) usefull, caring, loving normal members of society & not the unemployable thugs that we are constantly being portrayed as. It doesn't matter if you live in the area that the election is being held, you can come from anywhere as long as you are a british resident. It would need to be somebody well informed on the actual FACTS of how providing people with the substance(s) legally proves to be very successful in reducing crime, NHS costs & giving the user back their self esteem as users do not have to enter a world of criminality. Also showing the fact that prohibition of any substance worldwide has never been a success. Even in countries where people recieve the death sentence for supply & possession of drugs it still goes on,simply because of the laws of supply & demand. I'm sure that the candidate would very probably come in last in the polls, but it would give the general public an idea of how many of us drug users are out there, not posing any threat to the general publics precious exsistences. Just think of the drop in knife crime & gangland turf-wars if the criminal element was eradicated or at the very least minimalised if all substances were supplied by the state...think of the taxes that they could rake in! Fair enough a lot of folk that don't work get their meds for free, but I pay prescription charges & wouldn't be to put out if I had to pay a little extra for pharmacuetically made drugs, or organically grown weed/opium. I think that even when taxed we would all be paying a lot less than your dealer on the corner charges for a bag of 40% pure, the taxes levied could be put straight back into the service of distribution by trained health proffesionals.
I'm starting to ramble on a bit here but all we need is 1 person that is prepared to put their name forward for an independent political party based on the ideals of Anti-prohabition. Like I said before Howard Marks was prepared to let anybody use his name for a " Free the Weed Party" as long as he had been contacted first & his name could be used in any election across the country. One small problem being that to register you need to pay a minimum sum of £500, I'm sure we all know 50 drug users that could contibute £10, even £5! The big problem is finding that 1 person in the U.K. that is passionate enough & prepared to allow us to use their name as a candidate.
I don't know, maybe good old Howard would be prepared to widen his political views beyond weed & let his name be used for a broader Anti-Prohabition Party? Let's face it he has got nothing to lose, Will Self is another name that springs to mind. That is a man that can run circles around any politician in a political debate!
This country is "meant" to be a democracy & even though like I said before the party would probably come last in the polls I think it would give the public a big surprise with the amount of votes that they got, also bringing the whole subject of decriminalisation into the headlines when it is so often swept under the carpet. Most drug users that I know didn't even bother their arses to vote or even spoil their paper as I did, I can understand why in a way as whichever way you vote you are voting for a bunch of self satisfying w*nkers who at best are slightly left of right wing. I'm sure that if there was a candidate out there who's policy was one which could be a means of showing non drug users that we are everywhere in societey..colleagues at work, friends, professionals, Doctors, Nurses even the odd copper then it would be up to us to get our shoes on,get down to the polling station & stand up & be counted in an anonamous way.
All we need is that 1 person prepared to let their name be used...there has to be someone out there who understands the ridiculousness of the current situation & realises that the only real change can come from below, by the people who are effected by these issues!

[derek d j]

Ahh so you'll have people exiting treatment drug free I imagine as far as NDTMS goes.

 In the interests of discretion, we avoid such thoughts.   But it does seem none of the complainant users have actually managed to 'reduce' at all.  If they tell the truth to the dsp, they invite only further 'help' ; if they want to avoid greater 'monitoring and supervision', they shiut up.   But then they're reacting well to reductions.  Sorta f***ed if you do, f***ed if you don't.
 But we hope such absurdity is becoming apparent to brighter dsp bulbs, and that all will soon change.
 I see OP8 was inspired to his 'MP' post after reading yours, Simon.  They say healthy cynicism is an essential qualification for a politician and we look forward to your announcing your candidacy soon...I'll even contribute a fiver to your campaign fund!