The true test of family values

According to the Liverpool Daily Post, so-called 'pro-family' campaigners are up in arms at the city council's decision to employ ex-offenders, many of whom are former drug users and alcoholics, to act as tour guides during Liverpool's tenure as the European City of Culture in 2008. There have been calls for those responsible for the decision to resign; the plan has been denounced variously as, 'dangerous', 'irresponsible' and 'unacceptable'. One protester said that he would be very uncomfortable at the thought of his children coming into contact with such people.

As well as being ex-offenders, they will also be brothers, sons, uncles, nephews and husbands - and no doubt wives, aunties and daughters as well. So it seems singularly perverse for organisations purporting to support the institution of the family to be railing against attempts to help people back into the community and reconnect with their families.

The second thought is how would anybody know that their tour guide was an ex-user? Would they be expected to wear a badge saying, 'Hi, my name is Dave and I used to be a smack head'. This goes to the nub of the stigma and isolation that so many people in this position feel. And it is why any future drug strategy has to address this by doing much better at paving the way for people to get back some dignity and self-esteem through education, training, a job and somewhere to live. People with drug and alcohol problems are not outsiders, they are part of our communities.

Hopefully Liverpool council officials will ignore the protests because giving ex-offenders this kind of chance will say more about Liverpool as a City of Culture than all the art galleries and concert performances ever could.

War on Drugs and the DMZ

Since the last Druglink blog, DrugScope has been accused on live radio of 'taking government money to promote drug use', 'downplaying the effects of drugs' and generally being responsible for the level of drug use in the UK. This is both ludicrous and illuminating.

Back in the early seventies, DrugScope's predecessor, ISDD was accused by the underground press of being a front organisation for Big Tobacco because we had (perhaps unwisely) Sir Harry Greenfield of British American Tobacco as our chair. More recently as DrugScope, we were the subject of a hoax memo sent to MPs and journalists purporting to minute a secret meeting between DrugScope and Big Pharmaceuticals at which allegedly we plotted jointly to lobby for the legalisation of drugs. We have also been accused of exerting undue influence on David Blunkett to reclassify cannabis. But there are those who berate us for not being radical enough, for being too close to government. It seems either we are in the pockets of the prohibitionists or we are the lackeys of legalisation.

All of whch serves to demonstrate that drugs is one of the most contentious and polarised areas of public discourse. In the War against Drugs, if you're not for us, you're 'agin' us. So to extend the metaphor, occupying the Demilitarised Zone is not easy, but it is where the many thousands of people who access our services every year expect us to be - continuing to provide non-judgemental, up to date and evidence-based information.