Sober N Clean

THE maker of leading alcopop brands such as Vodka Cruiser and Pulse has found a way around the tax on premixed drinks: using alcohol derived from lower-taxed beer to attract younger drinkers back to the sweet stuff.

The arrival of the first Australian "malternative", as they are dubbed overseas, comes as nationwide alcohol consumption figures obtained by the Herald show the tax rise on ready-to-drink beverages in April is having a massive impact on sales and the broader consumption of alcohol.

The number of standard drinks consumed each week has fallen by 3 million since the alcopop tax rise, says a confidential report sent this week to key players in the alcohol industry by the research group Nielsen.

Leading suppliers in the once booming premixed category have been stunned by the collapse in sales since May, a trend confirmed in Nielsen's figures this week, which show there were 7 million fewer premixed standard drinks consumed between May and July compared with the same time last year.

While the figures show spirit and beer consumption is up, they have not offset the overall decline in alcohol consumption led by the stampede away from premixes.

"The total number of packaged liquor standard drinks has declined at a faster rate since the introduction of the [ready-to-drink] tax increase," Nielsen says.

The Federal Opposition has said it will block the tax in the Senate.

While premixed drink sales are down 26.2 per cent, spirits are up by 2.9 million standard drinks a week over the same period and beer is up by 1.1 million standard drinks a week.

But Nielsen's figures show the increase in beer and spirits consumption is still 3 million standard drinks less than the same time last year.

And it is why some in the spirits industry are very worried about disappearing profits.

One of the biggest players, Independent Distillers, told the Herald yesterday that it was about to launch Bolt, a "malternative" in three sweet flavours - raspberry, passionfruit and blueberry - designed to appeal to younger drinkers.

Bolt will be up to $25 a carton cheaper than spirits premixes because it is made with alcohol derived from beer - with all the beer taste characteristics stripped out during production.

A spokesman for Independent Distillers said it was not using a loophole in the new tax regime to launch a cheaper type of premixed beverage, but said it highlighted the problems of taxing spirits at a higher rate than beer.

Packaged beer is taxed at $39.40 a litre of pure alcohol while ready-to-drink beverages carry an impost of $66.70 a litre of pure alcohol.

Critics, however, said the "malternatives" and spirit premixes were developed to exploit the sweeter taste preferences of younger people and needed higher taxes to deal with social issues such as binge drinking.
RISE AND FALL

Since the alcopops tax increase:

- Sales in bottle shops have dropped by 7 million standard drinks a week, or 26.2 per cent

- Spirit sales have risen by 2.9 million standard drinks a week

- Packaged beer sales have risen by 1.1 million standard drinks a week

- Total liquor sales have fallen by 3 million standard drinks a week.
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Source: Nielsen

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/09/15/1221330747912.html

I was disappointed to read Peter Schrag's comments regarding Proposition 5 in his Sept. 2 column, although I can understand how well-meaning and thoughtful people can be misled by this deceptive initiative.

I agree with Schrag's concern for those who are drug dependent, but I oppose Proposition 5 because I believe it will do so much harm to so many people.

Fighting drug addiction is an issue that is very close to my heart. I believe in rehabilitation and not incarceration. But successful rehabilitation needs accountability and so often demands direct intervention in the life of someone who is addicted to drugs, rather than waiting for them to seek treatment "when they are ready."

Too many addicts are never ready or don't live long enough to become ready. That's why drug courts and judicial involvement in pushing offenders into treatment and keeping them there is vital to making rehabilitation work for so many drug- dependent individuals.

Proposition 5 promises rehabilitation – but actually prevents it. Instead of helping break the addict's cycle of self-destruction, it actually feeds the cycle by allowing addicts to continue using drugs while in treatment, without any consequence.

Proposition 5 would cripple successful rehabilitation programs and dramatically limit the power of drug-court judges to help those who need it most. It will take limited resources away from proven programs and waste them on mandated programs that have already been shown to be failures.

Proposition 5 will cost billions; if it could deliver on its promises that would be a price worth paying, but it won't deliver because it can't. It is fatally flawed at its foundations because it rewards those who continue to take drugs while in treatment, instead of requiring accountability.

While virtually all of California's sheriffs, district attorneys, police chiefs and probation officers oppose Proposition 5, it would be a mistake to suggest that their opposition is no more than a knee-jerk response. Enlightened law enforcement leaders are among the strongest supporters of drug-treatment programs and consider such programs a vital part of the solution.

Sadly, Proposition 5 shifts funding away from programs that demand accountability and into "harm reduction" programs whose goals are to make drug users better-informed consumers. Highly effective programs like Delancey Street or Narcotics Anonymous require those enrolled in treatment to quit using drugs, which means they wouldn't qualify under Proposition 5's "harm reduction" theory. Under Proposition 5, those in "treatment" could continue using drugs and even commit additional felonies, without fear of consequences. That alone should cause serious-minded people to question Proposition 5.

Yes, Proposition 5 does shorten parole from three years to just six months for drug dealers caught with up to $50,000 of methamphetamine, and, yes, Proposition 5 could allow those arrested for auto theft, identity theft and a host of other crimes involving victims to escape real consequences if they continued to violate the law.

We all need to look beyond the simplistic and the cliché and recognize that truly effective drug treatment programs with real accountability are in our best interests. The real problem with Proposition 5 is that it is not about stopping drug use. If it were, it would mandate funding for ongoing drug testing instead of prohibiting that funding, and it would not give drug sellers a reward for the harm they do to so many.

This poorly designed and dangerous initiative will deliver more drug addiction and more pain for thousands of addicts, their families and our state's communities. It is opposed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the League of Latin American Citizens and prominent treatment professionals. It is opposed by former Gov. Gray Davis and by Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully and Sheriff John McGinnis. I strongly urge that this dangerous and misguided measure be given the scrutiny it deserves.
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source: The Sacramento Bee, http://www.sacbee.com

BACK in 2003 many residents of Vancouver reckoned that an answer had finally been found to the worsening hard-drug problem in the liberal-minded city’s Downtown Eastside district. A reformist city council, borrowing a European idea, opened the first supervised heroin-injection clinic in North America. It was set up as a research experiment, with a three-year remit (since twice extended). The idea was that giving addicts a safe place to inject themselves would remove them from crime, disease and other risks, and make them more amenable to treatment. The Liberals who were then running the federal government agreed, and blessed Insite, as the project is called, with C$1.5m (then worth $1.1m) and a vital exemption from drug laws.

Five years on, Insite has proved a disappointment to many in Vancouver. It has also become the object of partisan conflict. The Conservative federal government of Stephen Harper dislikes the project. A committee set up to advise it on the issue found that only about 500 of Vancouver’s 8,000 addicts use Insite each day, and fewer than 10% of those use it for all their injections. It found no clear evidence of any increase in treatment, nor of any fall in HIV cases. It did estimate that the project might have saved one life per year but found that overdose deaths were still about 50 a year among addicts. Crime continues unabated as addicts steal to feed their habits, something which frustrates the local police. The government therefore proposed to allow Insite’s legal exemption to lapse when it expired in June.

Many health workers thereupon sprang to Insite’s defence. They are convinced that the project’s “harm-reduction” approach can work. In May they gained an order from a justice of British Columbia’s Supreme Court to stop the federal government from closing the clinic. In a radical ruling Justice Ian Pitfield found the federal law prohibiting the possession and trafficking of drugs to be unconstitutional and said that closing Insite would deny addicts access to a “health-care facility”. Allowing the clinic to stay open, he gave the federal government a year to amend its anti-drug law. The federal government promptly appealed against the ruling.

Health care in Canada is a provincial matter. Last month Quebec stepped into the drug debate. Its public-health director announced that he was considering plans for supervised injection sites in Montreal and Quebec City. This seems to have made things even stickier for the federal health minister, Tony Clement.

This week Mr Clement restated his opposition to Insite. “Allowing and/or encouraging people to inject heroin into their veins is not harm reduction, it is the opposite,” he said while attending an international conference on AIDS in Mexico City. He wants to focus instead on treatment and prevention. But he has remained silent as to whether the government would grant any request from Quebec for exemption from drug-prohibition laws. Mr Harper’s hopes of turning his government’s minority status into a majority at the next election depend on winning seats in Quebec. So the future of drug policy in Canada may turn on a political calculation.
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source: The Economist, http://www.economist.com

WHO WOULD have thought that cavalier lending practices in the U.S. Sunbelt would damage the second-largest industry in British Columbia?

No, I’m not talking about forestry and lumber. I’m talking about dope. BC Business magazine reckons that marijuana production in B.C. contributes $7.5 billion and 250,000 jobs to the province’s GDP — second only to construction, and more than forestry.

Most of the product is exported to the United States. The RCMP estimate that marijuana is being grown in about 20,000 B.C. homes, not to mention sizable farms in the Interior and large-scale commercial operations in former warehouses and industrial buildings. One academic study concluded that if marijuana in B.C. were legalized, the province would see $5 billion in additional legal business activity and could collect $2 billion in taxes.

The ranks of British Columbia marijuana producers have also broadened remarkably. Cannabis cultivation is no longer the exclusive preserve of organized crime, though organized crime certainly continues to thrive in the fetid netherworld of prohibition. Today, however, marijuana production has become a sideline for thousands of otherwise law-abiding middle-class citizens.

As a recent BBC report put it, "Much of the revenue derived from B.C. Bud, as the cannabis crop is known, goes on paying college fees, perhaps buying a second car or making that holiday to the Caribbean just a little bit more affordable." As a result, "the trade is so large that the police in B.C. are faced with an impossible task."

Indeed they are, and the job is getting harder. The RCMP drug section in Greater Vancouver once employed more than 100 officers; it’s now down to 60. The number of tips they receive about grow-ops has also fallen, from 615 in September 2003 to 207 last December.

Does that mean that the number of grow-ops has fallen? Probably it has, says Tony Emery, a leading cannabis advocate and leader of the B.C. Marijuana Party.

For one thing, the rising Canadian dollar has hurt the competitiveness of B.C. Bud, just as it has hurt filmmakers, the forest industries and furniture manufacturers.

In addition, the downturn in the U.S. economy has induced many Americans to try their hand at growing their own pot. Marijuana plantations have been turning up in the national forests, while laid-off workers and homeowners facing foreclosure have been converting their basements and spare rooms into grow-ops. Even a tiny operation using only a couple of high-intensity lights can earn $20,000 a year for the owner — in cash, and tax-free.

"It certainly is enough to tide people over, no problem," Emery says, "and two lights are not going to get you into trouble, either."

So there you have it. Predatory and foolhardy lending practices in the United States lead to a wave of foreclosures. Wary consumers stop buying. Workers get laid off. Desperate for cash, the victims of the downturn try their hand at illicit agriculture. At the same time, the rising loonie makes B.C. Bud less competitive, so Canadian growers find their markets contracting.

What’s so striking about this story is that it really is not a story about crime and the law. It’s a business story, and almost all accounts of the situation treat it that way. In theory this whole industry is illegal, but in practice it’s so big that the police can’t even begin to control it. Any serious attempt to enforce the law would require an army of police officers and gobble up so much public money that governments would almost have to abandon such other concerns as health care and education.

So the business is completely unregulated and the only controls on it are the controls the market itself imposes. As with any business, unfavourable market conditions affect the industry. Adverse exchange rates and increased competition drive prices down and eliminate marginal producers.

Nevertheless, the market is huge and hungry. It reaches into every social class and every age group, though a recent study from the University of Alberta apparently revealed that marijuana is particularly popular among educated, middle-class Canadians. Do they wish to break the law? Probably not. But do they think this law deserves to be obeyed? Obviously not.

In short, the law has essentially made itself irrelevant. If anything, the law benefits the business. To a large extent, the industry is profitable precisely because it is illegal. All entrepreneurs take risks, but if the risks include jail time, only the boldest entrepreneurs will enter the business — and they’ll demand a premium for the extra risk.

The net result of our irrational drug policies is that we enrich the criminals and criminalize ordinary citizens. We control tobacco and alcohol far more effectively than we control any illegal drugs. If those are the results we want, these policies are perfect.
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source: The Chronicle-Herald Nova Scotia, http://thechronicleherald.ca/TheNovaScotian

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration underscored its continued support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday despite fresh allegations from a former U.S. anti-drug official that Karzai is playing both sides of the effort to combat a raging drug business.

Thomas Schweich, who until June was one of the State Department's senior counter-narcotics officials, accused Karzai of protecting drug lords for political reasons. Schweich wrote in an article to be published Sunday in The New York Times magazine that "narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government."

Schweich said the Taliban-led insurgency fighting Karzai's government profits from drugs, but Karzai is reluctant to move against big drug lords in his political power base in the country's south, where most opium and heroin is produced.

"Karzai was playing us like a fiddle," Schweich wrote. The article appeared on the Times' Web site late Wednesday.

"The U.S. would spend billions of dollars on infrastructure development; the U.S. and its allies would fight the Taliban; Karzai's friends could get richer off the drug trade," he wrote.

State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos did not directly address Schweich's allegations but defended U.S. policy and backing for Karzai.

"We know and understand that there is a corruption issue in Afghanistan but we're working with the sovereign government," Gallegos said Thursday. "President Karzai has shown us through word and deed that he is working with us to help improve the plight of that country."

Corruption is a deeply rooted problem and addressing it, along with the country's massive development need, will not be quick, Gallegos said. "This is a long-term commitment in terms of time and this is a large commitment in terms of dollars."

Afghan officials were not immediately available to respond to Schweich's allegations.

Drug production has skyrocketed since the U.S.-led invasion that ousted the Taliban regime. In 2007, Afghanistan produced 93 percent of the world's supply of opium, the raw material of heroin.

Karzai has repeatedly promised his U.S. backers that he is committed to rooting out endemic corruption and fighting the drug trade.

"Karzai had Taliban enemies who profited from drugs but he had even more supporters who did," wrote Schweich, who used to serve as coordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform for Afghanistan. He was based in Washington.

Presidential elections in Afghanistan come next year, and Karzai has indicated he'll seek re-election.

Schweich accused the Pentagon and some U.S. generals of obstructing attempts to get military forces to assist and protect opium crop eradication drives.

NATO and U.S. military commanders have been reluctant to get involved in the drug fight, arguing that destroying farmers' crops would alienate tribesmen and increase support for the Taliban.

In 2003, about 198,000 acres of land was used to cultivate poppy. By 2007, it rose to 476,900 acres.

Opium production topped 9,000 tons, enough to make over 880 tons of heroin with a street value of $4 billion, according to the United Nations.

Figures for 2008 are not yet available.

The Ministry of Counter Narcotics says that 20 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces will be poppy-free this year — compared with 13 provinces in 2007. But in the south, cultivation remains rampant.
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source: e-ariana.com

Governor Cuts Funding To Money-Saving Drug- And Alcohol-Treatment Centers

When the Illinois General Assembly sent Gov. Rod Blagojevich a budget that was $2 billion dollars short on revenue, he had to veto something. So far, the governor has ordered reductions of $1.4 billion.

In Wednesday night's "Truth in Politics" CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports on one program where cuts appeared to be short-sighted. It may, in fact, be the dumbest budget cut ever.

One of the governor's cuts was $55 million in funding for drug- and alcohol-treatment programs that the federal government would have matched penny-for-penny. The cut has forced programs across the state to shut down and many of their tens of thousands of clients are likely to end up in jail, costing taxpayers far more.

At an Alsip site called "A Safe Haven," women trying to kick addiction to drugs and alcohol get enough help that their children can live with them, even if they've previously been taken away. Beginning Monday, though, all 120 of the women and kids there will have to leave.

Demetria Woods said, "not knowing where we're gonna go, what happens next, where will we live, the children … how this affects us is overwhelming.

Anthony Cole, vice president of the Haymarket Center, said, "It means you're gonna have increased homelessness, increased people committing crimes, increased neglect and abuse of children, increased burden on Cook County Hospital, increased burden on mental health institutions, because where else can these people go?"

Haymarket got a letter from the state Wednesday; their award-winning addiction-treatment center is losing nearly $4 million.

Come next Monday, they'll be forced to close half the beds in the detox unit. Recovering cocaine user Porcha James said she is thankful she and her son are already in.

"Without Haymarket and places that provide treatment or recovery, I and my son of 12 would be homeless, I would probably be selling drugs or doing lots of other illegal activity," James said.

"We're going to turn them away at the door. It doesn't make sense. They're going to go back and continue to do drugs and not care about their responsibilities as parents," Cole said.

"A Safe Haven" founder Brian Rowland said, "That's what tears me up. I mean, they can't take care of these kids. These kids are going to end up back in the care of (the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services."

According to a University of Chicago study in 1994, up to 80% of the state's prison population committed crimes related to substance-addiction; $1 spent on addiction-treatment saves at least $7 by reducing crime, child abuse and diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

The Illinois House voted to restore most drug- and alcohol-treatment money, leaving it up to the Illinois Senate to keep the funding in place, but the Senate President Emil Jones has indicated he won't bring senators back until after the November election.
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source: (© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Many harm reduction advocates believe the real harms are done by drug laws, not drugs - addicts, meanwhile, don't get the rehab they so desperately need

Billy Weselowski has seen it all, and he hates what he sees on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. "You can't go a block without a bicycle pulling up and giving you all the syringes you want," he growls.

Mr. Weselowski knows this world all too well. He grew up here. His childhood was a nightmare of violence and abuse. At 13, he blacked out from booze for the first time, and quickly wound up on the streets. He injected, snorted, stole, pimped women, stabbed men and became an accomplished felon. He was the hardest of the hard core.

Today, he runs rehab programs for drug addicts that borrow from the tough-love model of AA. He has successfully treated thousands of people, using an approach that emphasizes structure, personal responsibility and abstinence.

But this approach to addiction is deeply out of fashion. The experts who make drug policy, allocate public money, dispense research funds, advise politicians and push for reform aren't interested in hearing from people like him. Instead, they're interested in "harm reduction" - which, among other things, means giving people all the syringes they want.

In Mr. Weselowski's view, harm reduction is a farce. "They're killing people by the truckload," he says.

Canada's official drug policy is known as the Four Pillars approach: prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement. In practice, prevention and treatment have been neglected, while harm-reduction measures have steadily gained ground. Free needle and methadone programs are now widespread. (The term "needle exchange" is obsolete; needles are now handed out by the boxful.) Hundreds of addicts a day visit Vancouver's supervised injection site, which has become ground zero in an angry war of words.

Yet, harm reduction remains the orthodoxy of the day. "The supervised injection site is beyond questioning," says one Vancouver resident. "You are branded unprogressive, unfeeling and everything else 'un' if you criticize it."

David Marsh, the Vancouver region's medical director for addictions, says harm-reduction policies are often misunderstood. "Essentially, harm reductions are interventions that help reduce the harms associated with drug use, without necessarily requiring that drug use be decreased or stopped." They are a compassionate way to help the most addicted and marginalized of them all, to tide them over until they're able and willing to seek help. "It's part of Canadian tradition not to turn our backs to people at their lowest."

Harm-reduction advocates now rule the drug policy establishment. They dominate Health Canada, addiction research centres, drug policy groups, and the public health services of local governments. Nowhere is this more true than B.C., where social attitudes toward drugs are the most liberal in Canada. Public officials have fought tenaciously for the supervised injection site. For some, it represents a crucial step toward a far more sweeping form of harm reduction - legalization.

Many harm-reduction advocates believe the real harms are done by drug laws, not drugs. Prohibition is impossible, prevention is futile, and abstinence is unattainable for many. Therefore, if we stop criminalizing drugs, we'll get rid of most of the drug problems - the international gangs, the billions wasted on interdiction and enforcement, the crimes committed by addicts who need drug money, the imprisonment for petty drug crimes, and so on.

It's an attractive theory, at least on paper. Drug-law reformers have ideological allies around the world, in think tanks and at major universities. Among them is financier George Soros. Because of his deep pockets, he's been called the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization.

All of this is spicy stuff. Harm reduction is a hot research field that attracts major money and offers major career opportunities. At Vancouver's international drug conference last year, no one was interested in reactionary things like 12-step programs, rehab or recovery.

The noisy marijuana lobby provides a lot of fuel for this crusade, despite the fact that pot is not the issue. Marijuana use is not what creates the lion's share of crime, public disorder, massive costs to the health system, and ruined lives. The real problem is hard drugs, especially cocaine.

Vancouver's last three mayors have been outspoken advocates for legalizing marijuana (and the source of a certain civic pride for Vancouverites). The current one, Sam Sullivan, has called for medical versions of hard drugs to be available to addicts. The city's official drug policy calls for the federal government to legalize marijuana, and also to review its prohibition policies for other illegal drugs.

Three years ago, B.C.'s public health officers - the same ones who've cracked down on smoking - released a detailed report calling for "government controlled supply" for formerly illegal drugs. "Harm-reduction strategies have not been as effective as possible due to their implementation within the prohibition model." It laid out an ambitious model for "post-prohibition harm reduction," where the government, guided by its wise public health officers, would supervise the production and distribution of legal heroin and crack.

Cuckoo? Not so much. Top health officials in B.C. already endorse the use of medical heroin, and a trial program has just wound up. Some of them belong to groups lobbying for legalization, and least one influential official is a vocal advocate for the benefits of psychedelic drug use.

Not surprisingly, the group that runs Insite, Vancouver's safe-injection site, stridently opposes current drug laws, as does the publicly funded drug users' lobby, VANDU. These two groups are notorious for the noisy lengths they go to in order to silence their critics. They're also good at high-profile PR stunts, such as the recent demonstration on Parliament Hill where they planted 868 wooden crosses to symbolize the 868 people who overdosed at Insite.

"Insite was about people dying - friends and neighbours!" spokesman Mark Townsend told me in an interview. In fact, the research found that Insite averts around one overdose death a year, not 868. When asked about this discrepancy, Mr. Townsend brushed it off as irrelevant.

Given the current government in Ottawa, it's unlikely that the push for legalization will make headway any time soon. There's also another obstacle: the public. Health officials have faced citizen revolts in cities where people don't want free needles passed out in their neighbourhoods.

Sadly, all this theatre has deprived Canadians of a genuine debate over drug policy. The question isn't whether Insite is good or bad. The question is what steps we can take that really will reduce the harm drugs do.

Despite the shouting, it's not too hard to guess where the moderate majority stands on drugs. They don't want people prosecuted for smoking a little weed. (After all, plenty of them do it, too.) But hard drugs are different. We don't want to decriminalize them. But we also don't want to punish addicts by throwing them in jail. We want a humane drug policy that will help them get better - and if that means giving them a choice between rehab or jail, then maybe that's okay.

So maybe what we need is not more Insites but more Billy Weselowskis - people who can give drug addicts a shot at dignity and a life. Mr. Weselowski knows that even hard-core junkies can recover. After all, he did. "We help get them connected to a spark of hope inside their soul."
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source: The Globe and Mail, http://www.theglobeandmail.com

For the last few years, I've thought a lot about how to change the treatment system so that helps more people overcome addiction and gain a better life. At one stage, I had come to the conclusion that I needed to work with the people at the top, to help them understand the shortcomings of the current treatment system and see how it could be changed.

I gave a talk at the FDAP Annual meeting last year where I described the shortcomings of the system and emphasised that unless we did something we would end up like the American treatment system in the late 1980s and early 1990s - money was slashed and the system collapsed. I also pointed out the way we needed to move forward, which I
have reiterated in the Wired In 'Way Forward'.

I had a very positive response to my talk from a senior person within the NTA and I thought that I could enter into some long-term dialogue with the NTA that would lead to positive change. A change to a treatment system that is based on people attaining recovery - and I mean a genuine recovery, not some politicised excuse of recovery - is inevitable sooner or later. I thought that I could help speed up the process.

Well, after seeing the Paul Hayes article in the Guardian today, I realise how naive I have been. I'm not going to go into any great detail about the article, but I have to confess that it has made me angry. I quote, 'Hayes dismisses his critics as a few academics, politicians and "ideologues" stocked up by the media'. This is absolute rubbish - Paul Hayes either has his head very deeply buried in the sand or he is deliberately being untruthful.
There are many, many thousands of people out there who know that the current treatment system is NOT working and is causing damage to many people. These people who know the truth come from many different aspects of life - they are users, ex-users, family members, practitioners, commissioners, members of the general public, etc.

I've been in the North West for the past couple of days and it was quite clear to me that the people I spoke to all knew many people who know the system is not working and are tired of the NTA spin. Even some commissioners who do not really care about people with substance use problems realise that the way methadone is being used in many treatment programmes is not reducing crime and is storing up problems for the future.

Anyone can use words to create a false story, mislead people by playing with facts, and distract them by creating false concerns. Sooner or later such people are found out for what they are doing. It is time that Paul Hayes is found out for what he is doing. I encourage those people who do not believe that the current treatment system is working to write to Gordon Brown and tell him. Write and complain that Paul Hayes is misleading the country about what is truly happening.

We are talking about people's lives here. They are far more important than defending the current treatment system. Mr Hayes may think that few people will stand up and be counted - and maybe initially this will be the case. But there is a gathering momentum in the country for a treatment system that is focused on improving people's lives - rather than giving them a pill to keep them quiet - with an increasing number of people getting fed up with Mr Hayes's spin. The day of reckoning will come.
People with substance use problems need opportunity, choice and hope. The UK treatment system is not providing these key elements.

I leave you with a quote from Stuart Honor,
'It is no great trick to take an impoverished, unemployed individual who is addicted to heroin (and crack?) and turn him (sic) into an impoverished, unemployed individual who is addicted to heroin, crack, methadone and/or alcohol and benzodiazepines.'
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source: http://davidclarkwired.blogspot.com/

The head of the National Treatment Agency dismisses 'ideologues' who claim his organisation's addiction programmes aren't working. 'The evidence in favour is overwhelming'.

After seven years at the helm of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA), Paul Hayes is adamant that the addiction programmes he has overseen during his tenure are working. Not everyone is so convinced. On Radio 4 last week, Hayes was forced to defend his record against criticism that the current strategy of "treatment management" - using, for example, methadone for heroin addicts rather than "curing" their addiction - was failing and wrong-headed.

Hayes dismisses his critics as a few academics, politicians and "ideologues" stoked up by the media. He says any notion that investment in treatment programmes - central government funding has risen from £60m in 2001 to £400m in 2008-09 - has been a failure is wrong. The idea that treatment based on harm reduction could be replaced in future by an "abstentionist" approach, where success is measured primarily by the number of addicts "cured", is misguided, he insists. "We need to keep maintenance prescribing as an integral part of the drug treatment system because it stabilises people, reduces crime, reduces deaths."

The number of problem users in contact with treatment services has more than doubled in the last 10 years, from 85,000 to 195,000. Hayes says this is a clear indication that the system is working, but is far from the whole picture. Treatment centres, he insists, are also about taking the opportunity to ensure they help "as many people as they can to overcome their addiction, leave treatment and get on with their lives. But that's always been the objective of policy, so to a large extent a false division has been created. Rather more has been made of this very sharp split than it actually warrants."

There is an element of electioneering and political expediency to the current debate, Hayes suggests. "There was a political consensus for some time that drug treatment was a good thing and that, therefore, the more we had of it the better. There was consensus that the maintenance-led prescribing regime, which has got all the evidence behind it, is right. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence says it's the right approach, the World Health Organisation says it's the right approach - but always with an expectation that those people who could leave treatment free of their drug dependency should be encouraged to do so."

So if this is the case, why is there a debate now? Is it that the evidence doesn't stack up? Hayes says the evidence is clear and robust. "There are 130% more people in treatment than when we started [in 2001], rather than half the people dropping out because treatment isn't of good quality."

Chaotic lifestyles

But it isn't just about treatment numbers, he says. The impact on crime and a reduction in the social fallout from the chaotic lifestyles of problem drug users is also important to understand, he insists. "Long-term crime is falling, and when we match the criminal histories of people going through the treatment system, we show a reduction in arrests and charges. A York University study showed that for every £1 invested in treatment, the community gets £9.50-worth of benefit back - most of which is crimes that haven't happened."

Hayes suggests criticisms began to gain traction a year-and-a-half ago when the Conservative party's Social Justice Policy Group, headed by Iain Duncan Smith, published its Breakdown Britain report. A lengthy document examining the causes of social breakdown and poverty, the report concluded that an "explosion of addiction" was a major factor in fostering wider social exclusion. The possibility that policy might change direction under a future Conservative government was also mooted when it asked if current policy was "treating the symptoms rather than the causes", and concluded that treatment was being pushed in "the wrong direction, preferring maintenance to recovery".

Hayes insists that, despite the signs of a sea change indicated by Breakdown Britain, "the political reality" is very different. "If you actually scrape away the rhetoric of Breakdown Britain, you find people saying, 'Yes, methadone does work. We're not actually anti-methadone, but it's been given too much of a role in the past.'" He cautions against reading too much into the report. "What you promise in opposition and what you are forced to deliver in government are very different. You have to face the reality of the evidence and the resources you have available."

But how can Hayes be so sure that drastic changes in policy direction are not on the horizon if a Conservative administration does make it to Downing Street? If past performance in government is anything to go by, he says, then pragmatism dictates what is done. He points out that the "shift in policy away from an abstinence-driven policy towards a harm reduction policy took place when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister".

It also comes down, he says, to the fact that "very few people will deny there's a correlation" between drug dependency and crime. He argues that this, along with the "many complex problems" such as mental health difficulties that tend to come with people who are drug-dependent, tends to steer politicians down a more pragmatic path when in power.

So does Hayes concede anything to his critics? He admits that if the funding dries up things could get difficult - but says there is enough "for the moment". He also accepts that as the cash has been "pumped in" and local treatment services have expanded, quality of provision and cost-effectiveness has not always kept up. "You can't do that overnight," he says, adding that improving the quality of services - and therefore outcomes - will be a focus for the NTA for the next three years. Addressing critics who might say progress isn't coming quickly enough, he responds: "There is inevitably a time lag between the investment and the investment bearing fruit."

As for the future, Hayes sounds confident. "The evidence in favour of current approaches to treatment are overwhelming," he says. "The evidence and the cost-effectiveness will stand the test of examination and will stand up to whatever political spin is put on it. It may well be recast, relabelled, repackaged, but the evidence is the strength."
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source: The Guardian U.K

World donors promised Afghanistan more than $20 billion (£10 billion) of new aid, plus fresh moral support, yesterday, but told President Karzai that they were losing patience with his Government’s failure to stem rampant graft and drug trafficking.

Under international pressure over the lack of progress in rebuilding his country, Mr Karzai promised to fight corruption and sought understanding. Poppy-growing farmers, for example, needed help, he said. “Opium is about survival for them.”

The United States, represented by Laura Bush, its First Lady, opened the pledges at the Paris donors’ conference with a $10.2 billion commitment over five years. “Afghanistan has reached a decisive moment for its future. We must not turn our back on this opportunity,” she said.

David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, promised £600 million. He praised progress made in security and healthcare but said that there was a long way to go in building good governance in Afghanistan. The growing links between the insurgency and the drugs industry - which, Mr Miliband said, was reflected in the haul of 235 tonnes of cannabis resin worth about £200 million - had to be tackled.

The total was well short of the $50 billion that Mr Karzai was seeking from the 80 nations and organisations that have already promised $25 billion since 2002. Only $15 billion of that has been spent so far, much of it ineffectively and wastefully, according to aid experts. Afghanistan depends on aid for 90 per cent of its needs.

Nevertheless, Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, called the conference “an unexpected success”. “We had hoped in our most optimistic moments to raise perhaps 17 billion at the most,” he said.

President Sarkozy of France led a chorus of support for Mr Karzai’s fragile Government as the best hope for Afghanistan. “It is the duty of all democrats to help you,” he said. Mr Sarkozy, who has deepened French engagement with the forthcoming deployment of 900 combat troops, said that Afghanistan “was taken hostage by a regime allied to terrorism”.

About 8,000 people were killed last year in the fight with a rejuvenated Taleban, which is trying to break Western will to keep the Nato-led force of 47,000 in Afghanistan.

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, called for “active measures” against corruption, more transparency and better management of aid.

Stephen Smith, the Australian Foreign Minister, said that reconstruction had been slow. Mr Smith told The Times that “the Afghan Government has to start taking some responsibility” for the administration of the aid funds.

Mr Karzai cited progress in building roads and hospitals, and in fighting opium production since the 2001 fall of the Taleban regime, but he acknowledged: “There is a long way still ahead of us . . . Afghanistan needs adequate, long-term and predictable support.”
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source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk

I applaud Scotland's Future Forum on their forthright recommendations for the development of treatment and care services for those with drug and alcohol problems. Doubtless there will be criticism of proposals to prescribe pharmaceutical heroin. However, it should be noted that this already occurs elsewhere in Europe, and in North America, and safe injecting areas are available. Indeed, limited prescription of heroin already occurs within the UK, with some success. The prescription of heroin, methadone, and alternatives such as Suboxone, all have a potential role to play in moving drug users along the road to recovery.

In combination with the Scottish Government's significant new investment in the education, prevention, and treatment of alcohol problems, and the recently published Road to Recovery drugs policy, it is to be hoped that we might see a significant improvement in treatment and care services, with commensurate improvement in outcomes, and fewer drug and alcohol-related deaths.

It is also heartening to see a growing recognition that addiction is not simply a problem that can be treated medically and which only affects the individual. Rather, alcohol and drug problems affect families, organisations and society as a whole. As such, solutions must be found that are medical, psychosocial, economic, and cultural.
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I look forward to parliament's response.

Dr Gary Tanner, Clinical Lead, Alcohol and Drug Services, NHS Lanarkshire, Coathill Hospital, Coatbridge.
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source: http://www.theherald.co.uk

Local homes help struggling veterans

Wausau's John Blahuta is a 60-year-old Vietnam-era Army veteran who for most of his life worked as a corporate tax preparer. When he was laid off from his job five years ago, he expected to be able to find work quickly.

"I come from a very hardworking family, a strong work ethic," he said. "I'd rather work than get a handout."

But Blahuta did not find a new job. He was told he was "overqualified" for the clerical and retail jobs for which he applied, he said. His bills began to go unpaid, and more bills were added to those. Eventually he lost most of his possessions and his home.

"I don't have alcohol (addiction)," he said. "I don't have drugs, I don't have mental illness. But I am a homeless veteran."

Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor fallen American veterans -- those who have died in war. But there's another group of fallen vets -- those who face tremendous challenges when their service to the country ends.

Some, like Blahuta, may simply fall on hard times. Many others face substance abuse or mental health issues. Nearly a third of veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with some form of mental illness.

"It's bad when all these men and women go over there and serve their country, and then they come back and ... wind up living in the streets or under bridges," said Kelly Ferguson, 44, a house manager at Wausau's Randlin Adult Care Family Homes, which provides transitional housing for veterans and others in need.

Blahuta, who came to Randlin Homes as a resident in October, has been able to apply his professional experience within the organization, and in March he was elected treasurer of Randlin's board of directors.

Rebecca Epperson, 51, of Wausau is another house manager at Randlin Homes, as well as a Navy veteran who served during Vietnam. She came to Randlin as a resident after a period of homelessness, and she has faced physical and mental health issues. But she said the biggest problem among the homeless veterans she sees is substance abuse, particularly alcoholism.

"They can get a job, and they'll have that job for awhile," she said. "Then they start drinking, they relapse. They lose their job. They lose their home, they lose the friends that they just got. They start that cycle all over again. We're here to break that cycle."

Linda Larson Schlitz, who co-founded Randlin Homes with her husband, Ralph, said the organization's environment is crucial to its mission.

"We provide a family environment of people who care about them, who remember their birthdays and celebrate their sobriety days," Larson Schlitz said.

About 25 percent of Randlin's residents are not veterans. Tanya Throop, 33, is Blahuta's daughter, and she has struggled with mental illness, substance abuse and homelessness in her own life. Residency has provided her with structure and help with everything from taking her medications on schedule to learning how to make crafts.

Throop also works on painting plaster figurines in part as a way to learn patience and attention to detail. The homes work with other residents, both veterans and non-veterans, to develop skills that can be applied to other parts of their lives.

The issue of how society should provide for veterans is an ongoing discussion, and organizations like Randlin Homes are only one part of it. In late May, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would expand educational benefits for veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, making them eligible for the equivalent of full tuition at state universities following their service.

Expanded educational opportunities and job training were other subjects mentioned by Randlin staff, including Christine Oestreich, 30, of Wausau, a Navy veteran of the Afghanistan war.

"Places like the (Marathon County) Job Center give opportunities to veterans who are actively looking for jobs," Oestreich said.

Another subject that came up again and again in conversations with residents and staff was the distance most veterans must travel to get medical care. The outpatient clinic for veterans in Wausau has a long waiting list, and is not equipped to treat some conditions. Many are forced to travel to Madison or Tomah to get treatment.

As organizations like Randlin Homes try to meet the needs of homeless veterans in Wausau, Larson Schlitz said veterans are also working in her organization to help one another.

"We couldn't do it if we didn't have veterans helping other veterans," she said.
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source: Wausau Daily Herald

Ontario regulations banning medicinal-marijuana users from smoking on bar and restaurant patios violate the human rights of people with disabilities, alleges an Ottawa man who has filed a complaint over the issue.

Russell Barth submitted the complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission on Monday on behalf of himself and his wife, Christine Lowe.

"We're not asking for special rights; we're just asking for the right to use cannabis where people use tobacco," Barth, an amateur comedian, said Tuesday.

The letter accompanying the complaint alleges that the Ontario ban "infringes on our rights to gain access to services and infringes on our ability to perform on stage and to seek possible future employment as performers.

"It has also caused us much stress, ill health, embarrassment and humiliation."

Barth said he obtained a Health Canada licence to use medical marijuana in 2003 after being diagnosed with a variety of disorders, including post-traumatic stress syndrome, asthma and fibromyalgia, a syndrome characterized by fatigue and multiple pain points in muscles throughout the body.

He lives on a disability pension and is a full-time care giver for Lowe, who has epilepsy and also uses medical marijuana.

Barth said he needs the drug every two to three hours to treat his own medical symptoms.

"If I am having a muscle spasm, if I'm having nausea or anxiety or an asthma attack, I need to have my medicine immediately," he said.

On May 7, after performing at the amateur night of a comedy club in Ottawa, Barth said he began to feel intense pain in his legs and went outside to the outdoor patio area, where people were smoking tobacco.

He walked to the edge of the patio and was about to light up a joint when he was approached by a friend who worked at the comedy club. The staffer asked him not to smoke on the premises because of provisions of the Ontario Liquor Licence Act that ban liquor-licence holders from allowing people to consume a controlled substance on their property.

Afterward, a friend suggested that the incident was the fault of the government's regulations, not the bar owner.

Barth read the regulations and agreed that was the case.

Ontario law has no exemption for medical marijuana

Lisa Murray, a spokeswoman for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, said there is no provision or exemption for the use of medical marijuana in the regulations on controlled substances as they are currently written.

Under Health Canada's medical marijuana rules, people who possess marijuana for medical use must follow all other federal, provincial and municipal laws regarding controlled substances.

"Smoking marijuana for medical purposes in a public setting, thereby potentially exposing others to the drug's effects, is unacceptable," states a federal government document on the issue. "The authorization simply allows possession but does not give patients permission to use marijuana wherever or whenever he/she chooses; the rights of others must also be considered."
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source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation