The DDN letters page, where you can have your say.
The next issue of DDN will be out on 5 May — make sure you send letters and comments to claire@cjwellings.com by Wednesday 23 April to be included.
Drug-free hero
David Prentice states: ‘While the healthcare profession may not have all the answers to “cure” addiction, I’m yet to encounter one type of treatment that can.’
Which is confirmation of Lord Mancroft’s statement that: ‘The healthcare profession can’t cure addiction.’ Mancroft doesn’t say that addiction cannot be cured – only that it cannot be cured by ‘treatment’.
He is right in saying that ‘doctors do not understand addiction’, and this is confirmed by the numbers of addicted medical staff and the millions of involuntary addicts prescribed into addiction by doctors.
For centuries drugs have been used to try and solve personal problems. But, because of their own addictive properties, they quickly become a bigger problem than the one the individual is trying to solve. When a doctor does something to, or for, an addict in the name of ‘treatment’, he is trying to take away the addict’s own ‘solution’ to his own personal problem.
So, the only person who can cure substance addiction is the addict himself – as Benjamin Mancroft amply demonstrated in his own case. Seventy to 75 per cent of all addicts have tried to quit, failed and still want to quit. Their problem is not willingness, it is lack of knowledge of effective addiction recovery technology.
But training to achieve lasting abstinence has been available for 48 years, and is today delivered by 169 centres in 49 countries with a 55 to 75 per cent plus success rate. It is however resisted by the pharmaceuticals dominating our health services, who want to see addictive demand diverted to their own substitute drug products instead of being cured.
In many countries Lord Mancroft would be revered as ‘a drug-free hero’, but in Britain his success in recovering himself to the natural state of abstinence into which he was born, stands in the way of NHS medical treatment proliferation.
Kenneth Eckersley, CEO Addiction Recovery Training Services (ARTS)
Competition time
Enter the drugs meter minute competition by 30 September
In April 2013 Global Drug Survey released the first of its drugs meter minutes on what’s in pills and powders sold as MDMA. Filmed by Jon Derricott at the forensic toxicology lab at St George’s with the fabulous Dr John Ramsey, it’s been viewed almost 100,000 times. Since then we’ve done minutes with various experts on topics as diverse as what’s in cocaine, ecstasy pill testing, harm reduction for new drug virgins, PMA deaths, GHB and ketamine bladder.
In 2014 we want to open the door to the huge range of expertise that exists in the field of harm reduction and drug education with the first ever drugs meter minute video completion. The first prize is £750 and free registration to Club Health 2015 in Lisbon, with the runner-up getting £250. All videos endorsed by our expert panel of judges will be offered upload onto the Global Drug Survey youtube channel.
So what have you got to do to win? Easy – produce and submit a video two to six minutes in length on any drug-related topic. Your drugs meter minute needs to be of interest and relevance to people who drink or take drugs. Things that we are particularly interested in are things that
• share knowledge in a novel fashion
• treat the audience as responsible adults
• address important issues and help people make informed choices
• can promote social responsibility and peer intervention
• address the weird and the wonderful
Technical stuff: Your video needs to be filmed in HD with high quality audio. Videos can be sent as SD card or submitted toadam@globaldrugsurvey.com
Closing date: 30 September 2014. Judging panel: Andrew Bennett, Katy McLeod, Jon Derricott, Adam Winstock and Jim McVeigh. Winners will be announced on 15 November.
Please note the videos cannot show drug taking or endorse or promote drug use. Videos that are accepted for publication will be packaged within the usual drugs meter format and carry the drugs meter watermark.
Dr Adam R Winstock, founder of the Global Drug Survey, consultant psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist; www.globaldrugsurvey.com; www.drugsmeter.com; Twitter: @globaldrugsurvey, @drugsmeter, @drinksmeter