Drugs: no laughing matter?

Some years ago, this writer attended a conference where one of the speakers began, ‘I usually start my presentations with a joke. But drugs are far too serious a matter for that’. And the thought now, as then, is why not? Of course drugs are a serious matter: the lives of many people and their families have been wrecked by them. But many more lives have been destroyed by alcohol, yet comedians from W.C. Fields to Billy Connolly have created highly successful careers off the back of alcoholism – through reference to their own experience. Laughter has a serious point to make; if we can laugh at something, it becomes less threatening, more normalised and makes us less likely to react out of fear, ignorance and prejudice. Which are currently still the cornerstones of much public reaction to drugs and drug use. When a caller to a recent radio phone-in programme (in response to yet another call for heroin prescribing from a senior serving police officer) said that ‘I’d put them (users) against a wall and shoot them. They are scum.’- this was more than just a reaction to an illegal activity.

So where can we find humour in drugs? This week the government published a self-evaluation of its public drug information campaign called FRANK. Early on, the campaign took a commendably different approach, away from ‘Just Say No’ and did try to inject humour into its advertising with some success, although the recent ‘cannabis brain warehouse’ effort was extremely lame. The ad was instantly satirised on YouTube where customers were offered clean government-issue brains so they didn’t need to worry about things like the war in Iraq, identity cards etc.

There was an attempt a few years ago to produce a sitcom about heroin addicts. It got no further than some internet clips apparently because it was too boring. Nothing happened. They just sat around. Sounds like The Royals. But drugs do appear in the cultural mix of topical humour. Here are some very recent examples from the BBC:

• There should be two Olympics – one for drugs and one without – because if there is an athlete pumped-up on steroids who can run the 100 metres in six seconds, an awful lot of people would pay good money to see that. (Mock the Week)


• The polls show that David Cameron has taken the Tories to a new 15 year high in the polls. Or was it just something he smoked? (The News Quiz)


• It is claimed that the NHS is paying too much for drugs. Now if they just went down to Brixton….. (The News Quiz)

So can we get more perspective into the drugs debate through humour? Or is really not a laughing matter?

Harms less hidden

The public’s response to saturation coverage of David Cameron’s alleged cannabis use at age 15 was, overall, a collective shrug of the shoulders, typified by Home Secretary, John Reid’s observation: “I think the public will probably say ‘So what, let’s move on”.

Which might be OK for an Eton-educated politician, but by the end of last week we were on the verge of another moral panic about the state of society, the family and childhood. The Unicef report on child well-being placed Britain at the bottom of 21 rich countries - indicators included relative poverty, teenage pregnancy, underage drinking and drug use. The NSPCC, echoing the view of many children’s charities, described the findings as “shocking and disappointing”; the children’s commissioner warned that “there is a crisis at the heart of our society.”

The warning was starkly highlighted by the fatal shooting of another London teenager age 15, the third murder in two weeks. Tony Blair denied that the killings were "a metaphor for the state of British society", but the Opposition made a link between gang culture, the findings of the Unicef report and problems within families and communities. This weekend the Prime Minister announced a review of firearms law and an emergency summit of ministers, police and community leaders. Criminalising gang membership and lowering the age for a mandatory five year prison sentence for gun possession from 21 to 17 are apparently being considered.

Last year the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) emphasised that preventative measures to tackle hazardous tobacco, alcohol and drug use among young people needed to be much broader than drug education. Prevention is about tackling child poverty, supporting families, the importance of stable family relationships, all ‘upstream’ issues highlighted by the Unicef report. Intuitive perhaps, but it is important that in the context of drug and alcohol misuse there is a greater emphasis on (longer term) prevention, and the opportunity taken to move out of the silos and link more emphatically to other, wider policy issues and agendas.

The trade in illegal drugs and turf wars between rival gangs may lie behind recent shootings, but, although a catalyst, few disagree that social and economic factors undoubtedly contribute. Inevitably politicians will react to demands that ‘something must be done’, hence emergency summits, but there are reasons why the pledge to eradicate child poverty was made and given a 20 year target.

Last week the Guardian reported that the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, is considering creating a children’s minister at cabinet level tasked with tackling poverty and exclusion. The likely next prime minister is apparently frustrated that not enough is being done to help vulnerable people break the cycle of offending and thereby reduce the numbers in prison. Responsibility for youth justice may be moved from the Home Office to the Department for Education and Skills, under the wing of the children’s minister.

There are reasons why some young people who use drugs come to harm when others move on and achieve much in life. Obviously the majority of children from disadvantaged backgrounds do not come to harm, but the risk factors are greater. ‘Prevention, prevention, prevention’ – it has a ring to it.

Harms still hidden?

Blink and you may have missed it. Last week the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) published a review of progress on 'Hidden Harm', its ground breaking report on parental drug misuse. In 2003 the ACMD estimated that there were up to 300,000 children of problem drug users in England and Wales and as many as 59,000 in Scotland.

After barely a flicker across the news wires the ACMD's press release for the review issued on 9th February went largely unreported. Contrast that with saturation media coverage a couple of days later of David Cameron's alleged use of cannabis when aged 15. The ACMD's review deserves attention but it is necessary to read the full report to get an accurate picture of progress, or otherwise, as the accompanying press release was short on specifics and seems to have pulled its punches. Journalists appear not to have received advance copies of the report and few if any will have worked against deadlines through its 123 pages to extract something 'newsworthy'.

Undoubtedly there has been progress in addressing the needs of children whose parents or carers misuse drugs, with improvements in services and greater awareness among professionals. Much credit for this must go to the ACMD. But progress is far from uniform across the UK, with gaps in the implementation of the ACMD's original recommendations. Most strikingly the report highlights time and again insufficient progress in England compared with other countries in the UK and particularly compared with Scotland. For example, on the need for a cross-government structure to lead in co-ordinating policy delivery: "It therefore continues to disappoint the ACMD that this approach has been rejected by the UK Government in relation to England", and so on.

The fact it took the Department of Education and Skills nearly two years to published the UK Government's response to 'Hidden Harm' was not particularly auspicious, and concerns then about the level of commitment and leadership find echo in the ACMD's review. The Scottish response to 'Hidden Harm' (e.g., centrally funded training, local protocols) has been impressive by comparison, which makes it all the more tragic that the issue of parental substance misuse has become such a prominent and politically heated topic in Scotland, driven in part by the media's highlighting of cases of children coming to harm. In one, a toddler was left to cope on his own for several weeks after his mother died following an overdose. The fact that he was the child of a problem drug user may explain how he managed to feed and look after himself for so long, but it was a scandal that no one missed him or his mother and thought to raise the alarm.

This and other cases have put politicians in Scotland on the defensive, it seems unfairly. But such is the climate of debate in Scotland, that proposals such as requiring women to agree to take contraceptives during treatment are worryingly being aired.

'Hidden Harm' was a necessary wake-up call on an important, difficult and neglected subject. It seems, at least in England, that the alarm was not loud enough, despite what can be learnt from Scotland.

Hidden Harm Three Years On: ACMD Press Release:
http://www.drugs.gov.uk/Hidden_Harm_Press_Release__1.pdf
Hidden Harm Three Years On: Full Report:
http://www.drugs.gov.uk/Hidden_Harm_3_Years_On_Fina1.pdf

The never ending drug scam

For several years, small businesses have been targeted by fraudulent publishing companies over the production of drug education and other materials for school children. It is still going on and the authorities seem powerless to stop it.

DrugScope's name often appears on these booklets and some have included text stolen from our website. We have nothing to do with this fraud and have dealt with several enquiries over the years from people who have been approached.

The fraud works in various ways, but it goes something like this. A small business will be contacted - we have examples of law firms, architects, pubs and estate agents. It could be any high street business. The business receives a phone call and is asked if they are interested in warning young people about the dangers of drugs by sponsoring the production of booklets to go into local schools. Sometimes the request might be to advertise - and the caller could say (falsely) that the company has advertised before. Of course, most community-minded business people will say yes. Then they receive a pro-forma invoice (and sometimes) a copy of the publication they have allegedly paid for. However;

1. The cost taken by the company far exceeds the cost of production of any booklet
2. The information provided is usually utter rubbish and follows no proper guidelines on the production of drug education materials for schools.
3. Some of it will be in breach of copyright.

Moreover, the companies are completely, fly-by-night giving false addresses, phone numbers and websites. Attempts to track these people down often fail because the locations simply don't exist. Much of this activity emanates from the north west of England, in Manchester and the Greater Manchester area (Stockport, Cheshire), but there are London locations as well.

Occasionally the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) manages to close one of these operations down (as they did in 2005) but another appears shortly afterwards. Most likely it is the same group of people and if so, it seems incredible that British company law allows this to happen time and again.

If you have received a pro-forma invoice of this type, you are under no obligation to pay it.

If you are working in the drug sector or education, please alert any business contacts you may have, by passing this blog on.

More details of this scam can be found at www.insolvency.gov.uk/cib/scams.htm

You can also fill out a complaint form online at www.insolvency.gov.uk/cib

And you can forward any documentation you receive to the Companies Investigation Branch, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H OET. Tel: 020 7215 4696