and properly treating addiction

I thought this was still a holy grail thing though, and addiction (cure) still not understood from a medical point of view.

Apart from alchohol the major problem drugs in terms of anti-social behaviour are the new ” legal highs ” which have just been criminalised and are making massive problems in prison , as others have said the whole issue of drugs needs to be looked at root and branch .No one could pretend current policies are even seeming to work .

I thought this was still a holy grail thing though,

No, it’s not. People are being successfully treated and ‘cured’ all the time. The tragedy is that this support is now being withdrawn as a result of austerity and puritanical political grandstanding. It’s the main reason my Mrs got out.

and addiction (cure) still not understood from a medical point of view.

Yes, it is. You appear to not have the first clue about any of this, yet are happy to label all addicts as ‘scum’. Maybe go away and do some research before spouting any more bollox?

Sorry, but they made a choice when they started using.

Next time one decides to open up to me about how their parents abused them, they were passed around between uncles for sexual pleasure I’ll tell them it was their choice.

Dazh all the stuff I have read says it can be managed, but not cured. Happy for you to point me in the direction of medical papers that say it can be cured

Drac – Moderator

Sorry, but they made a choice when they started using.

Next time one decides to open up to me about how their parents abused them, they were passed around between uncles for sexual pleasure I’ll tell them it was their choice.

well said drac, some on here need a reality check, and its not yet available on the nhs.

Stuff happens in peoples lives, some react in different ways,to the normal to cope, until youre in that position or meet someone who is that position, treat everyone with respect and listen when they talk.

Dazh all the stuff I have read says it can be managed, but not cured.

Depends what you mean by ‘cured’ (it’s not a word used by practitioners TBH). In the drugs treatment world that means ‘detoxed’, where the user is no longer physically dependent on the drug or any substitutes like methadone. Obviously they will probably have to live with the psychological side of it forever, which I guess that’s what you’re alluding to. In many cases detox is not a realistic proposition, so it is managed with the use of substitutes like methadone so that users can stabilise their lives and get to a position where detox is a realistic prospect. Sadly due to financial pressures the harm reduction approach is now being replaced with a more abstinence based model, forcing many addicts to detox when they have neither the motivation or support to do so, and they end up relapsing and buying heroin on the street, starting the whole cycle again. My Mrs had clients who she’d worked with for years end up back on the streets as chaotic smackheads when previously they were leading relatively normal lives.

My Mrs had clients who she’d worked with for years end up back on the streets as chaotic smackheads when previously they were leading relatively normal lives.

Oh so its ok to call them smackheads but not scum 🙂 semantics apart, the ones coming in to the workplace to steal a charity box would be unlikely to be the ones on a managed rehab programme….

The OP has two distinct parts. Bottom line is addicts need help and support but stealing can not be justified to support an addiction.

And the chaps who took the money were sound of mind enough to know they were stealing.

Make of it what you will but I think the OP handled the situation in probably the most appropriate way.

wasnt David Camerons brother in law a smackhead?

and allegedly SamCam attended rehab for her coke habit

then theres osborne….

so maybe some junkies are scum, but not coz of their addiction 😉

I knew a guy, friend of a friend who used to come for a pint with us now and then.

“Normal” life, job, house girlfriend.

Did the Classic “Daily Mail” gateway drug thing. Got into dope in his late 20’s and just seemed to love it. Within 3 years his was in rehab for heroin addiction and his mother had sold her house to sort the finances out.

He always seemed a real sound bloke when I met him.

Pretty sorry tale.

Not sure what finally happened to him.

If it was an RSPCA box it rather see the junkies smoke it.

In September, my cousin tried reefer for the very first time
Now he’s doing horse, it’s June, *
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.
.
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*I may have heard that somewhere else

My wife had a work colleague who did the classic middle age heavy drinker… always up for lunchtime beers, empty vodka bottles found in random office bins, working late, caught sleeping in the office after his wife booted him out, got fired etc

Everything binners said.

Addicts need help.

Not beating with a stick.

Usually, they’ve already been beaten with a stick, and it doesn’t work.

Some will never be free of it, that’s just something that has to be accepted. With help most can be stable. I believe.

I also believe almost anyone can become an addict, given the right (wrong?) circumstances.

For anyone interested in this subject I can thoroughly recommend Professor David Nutt’s book ‘Drugs:without the hot air’.

Plenty in their about evidence based approach to reducing harm, the reasons for addiction and Portugal’s approach to decriminlasing drug use.

There but for the Grace of God go I…

Next time one decides to open up to me about how their parents abused them, they were passed around between uncles for sexual pleasure

I think we shop at the same ASDA? 😯

But on a slightly more serious note, in my experience not all addicts (of any variety) have suffered the above, but lots have and worse. But, the same can be said about people who significantly over or under eat, or for people who seem ‘normal’. I just take folk on their own merits, the labels just make it easier for ignorant twits to treat people as lesser beings.

Domwells – would that be the same David Nutt who was sacked by Tony Blair for having the bare-faced audacity to use his lifetime of expertise in the field to calmly propose a sensible aproach to drug policy, decriminalisation and treatment of addicts, instead of simply screaming hysterical tabloid nonsense?

That one decision alone sums up the wilfully blind, evidence-free stupidity of the drugs policy of successive governments.

“We’d like you to conduct a totally independent inquiry, and we’d like you to reach the following conclusions….”

Take all the drugs you want, I dont care as long as you can afford your habit but once you are at this level then I would suggest termination as the only solution.

Sorry, but they made a choice when they started using

I’ve met a lot of addicts and I’ve been to the funerals of quite a few heroin addicts..
I’ve only ever met one addict that started using as an adult, and she had a very tragic story and very little else to live for..
Every other addict that I’ve ever encountered started their drug use as a very broken child from a pretty dismal background..

If you’re one of the fortunate majority that don’t fall into that lifestyle then good for you, but don’t think for a second that it gives you the right to occupy some sort of moral high ground..

Walk a mile in another man’s shoes before you judge and all that

Correct Binners. There is plenty in the book about successive governments’ inability to make decisions based on evidence, and even breaking their own laws so they don’t have to listen to the drugs advisory committee.

Take all the drugs you want, I dont care as long as you can afford your habit but once you are at this level then I would suggest termination as the only solution

Oh so its ok to call them smackheads but not scum

Hardly the same is it?

the ones coming in to the workplace to steal a charity box would be unlikely to be the ones on a managed rehab programme….

On the contrary, they’re entirely likely to be in treatment. It’s not a black and white thing. Many continue to use illicit drugs on top of the prescribed stuff. It’s a transition that needs to be managed, and the drug workers, doctors and social workers do that pretty well in most cases. The only prerequisite to getting treatment is that the user wants it, and is willing to engage with it.

I’m currently working on a project relating to an improved pharmacological treatment for opioid dependence and it’s really opened my eyes. It’s a horribly stigmatised and overlooked condition. It doesn’t take much to get addicted, and then it causes physiological changes to the brain which make it impossible to quit without help. In America there is a massive problem with addiction to opioid painkillers. All these people, whether they’re addicted to heroin or prescription painkillers are human and need help.

Google the study done in Liverpool were addicts were medicated with heroine instead of methadone, addicts held down normal jobs, held normal lifestyles crime went down, addiction rates tailed off once users hit mid 30’s
Until John Major’s government put a stop to all that nonsence

Once more the sensible informed voices on stw win out to the DM diatribe types

“I didn’t get where I am today……” lectures as a thinly veiled excuse to wax lyrical about how bloody wonderful they are, having made all the right decisions in life….

Agreed. Luck or chance has the biggest influence on how well you do in life. Frankly, if people believe otherwise they are deluded. Life is a lottery that begins at conception.

Self-satisfied, smug and vain people who believe their success is due to simple hard work and effort really gall me! It suggests they believe they are ‘better’ hence why they deserve more.

Re: recovery; I am professionally acquainted with and mates with a total of four registered health/social care professionals who are former herion users. 2 from poor socially deprived backgrounds and 2 a bit more lower/middle/ptofessional class backgrounds. That’s the ones that I know of anyway, and plenty of colleagues know these folk and don’t know their past.
Would be interesting to know for the purposes of stats whether this is representative of the possibility of recovery as a whole.

As above plenty of cost and complication to society with heroin in particular is a consequence of it being illegal and underground. And of course ‘legal highs’ exist because the original illegal ones are illegal: you wouldn’t bother making and selling them if it was easier to make and sell real cannabus and mdma, because they are more predictable and (apparently) more fun. Legislation needs to look at what has evolved because of legislation and take a pragmatic stance. Also consider tax revenue if you could go to the chemist and buy properly regulated and taxed recreational drugs!

Think a few here need to listen to this – then see if your attitude is the same.

I’ve seen 2 friends go completely off the rails through prodigious soft drug misuse and it’s a sad thing to see. It’s quite likely neither of them will be the same again.

Although there’s the example of Portugal where drugs have been decriminalised and usage has fallen, the more recent example is Colorado, where cannabis was decriminalised a few years back and usage has been rising year on year since – particularly amongst kids.

Wait till a pair of the rattling scumbags stab you for your wallet and then see how you feel about them.

has that happened to you km79? In my experience they tend to prefer stabbing each other

Who the f*** said get a job instead of stealing?
6.5 million unemployed underemployed, sanctioned, or financially inactive, plus the churn of those in poorly payed or insecure employment, all chasing around 500000 available positions.
Take one bone and bury it, release 10 dogs, one gets the bone. Chastise the other 9 dogs for not getting the bone. Force the other 9 in to bone finding workshops. Chastise and demonize them for not finding the bone. Remove their kennels and force them in to starvation if they still refuse to find a bone.
No wonder drugs look attractive if that is Blairite /Tory Neoliberalists mentality

Ones opinion of them normally reflects the amount of exposure you have had to them IME. I have known 6 people die of ODs now, none of them were bad people but whilst they were using they would not think twice about burgling friends houses. One tried to do mine, and he was a friend since childhood. Dog bit him (pretty badly too). Good old mutt got steak for tea that night.

It did indeed yunki, walking through town minding my own business and attacked from two sides at once.

It did indeed yunki

have you considered that maybe you’re one of them?

I’ve experienced enough of the actions and chaotic life of a heroin addict to form an opinion that some people would probably choose not to believe. They are just normal people who made a bad decision at some point and cant find a way back.

My best friend from around 4 years old became a heroin addict at around 14/15.
He was always in the lower end of the class for performance and had a bit of a daring naughty side to him. His home life was unloving and his family was split, and very strange (mum was a ‘massage parlour owner/sex worker’). So I guess he was always destined to fall through the cracks.

I supported him, as did my family, as much as I could, but once his addiction really hit him, after 10 or more years of total dependancy on heroin, its hard for someone to believe that they could cope or function without it. He’d quit and then relapse, and quit again, going round in circles, but ultimately he’d not have the final push to help himself. He needed help with everything and his family would just give him money and free board instead of emotional help, which just encouraged him to fall deeper into it.

I ended up giving up on him 5 years ago when I realised that he was becoming too much of a burden on my life and he’d be a liability around my children. He’d burgled my house before, stolen money and things from me. I couldnt have that keep happening. Havent seen him for a while now but have heard he is off and on it, always will be I guess.
He was just a normal little kid, my friend, we played in the park, climbed trees, rode bikes and ate birthday cake together. He had a bad start and made a stupid decision at some point and it just got worse and worse. He’d tell me how he wishes he’d never tried it, but he couldnt stop.
The things i’ve seen him do, the stories he’d tell me about how he’d feed his addiction sometimes. Crazy, crazy things.

Heroin addicts are human beings, but they are not part of society, they are in a world of their own. They dont even realise it.

Nah, obviously not hip enough like yourself.

Headline in the local paper tonight.

A thieving smackhead, or ‘just’ a thief?

Many of you that are comparing this to alcoholism and choice are missing the fact that there is a certain set of genetic and environmental triggers which can combine to make it no choice at all.