Many drug services are now perfectly at ease with collecting urine samples from clients and discussing the results with them. Research shows that up to three in five opiate users take cannabis on a regular basis. Could there be another…
Author Archive for admin
Druglink article 1998 – What’s in a sausage? The roots of cannabis prohibition by Harry Shapiro
The law reform lobby has been revitalised in the nineties supported by elements within the body politic, the media, medicine, the police and the judiciary and an unknown but growing proportion of the public. However, most governments, international agencies –…
Druglink article 2014 – 50 best drug books part 1 by Blaine Stothard
50 best drug books part 1 (PDF)
Druglink article 2014 – 1993: Hepatitis C by Tom Waller and Roger Holmes
While all the attention was justifiably focussed on the preventing the spread of HIV, another BBV among injecting drug users was gaining ground that either went unnoticed – or as Dr Waller believed, was known about, but ignored because the…
Druglink article 2014 – 1988-1992: Everything starts with an E
1985 saw the first mention of ecstasy in the UK press. It came in the November edition of a style magazine called The Face. The magazine dubbed ecstasy as ‘the yuppie way of knowledge’, showing that back then, the drug…
Druglink article 2014 – 1987: Time to build bridges – NA and the ‘Minnesota Method’ in Britain by Brian Wells
There was much that was unhelpful and counter-productive in the sector ‘abstinence v harm reduction’ furore that kicked off in 2008 after the government struggled to respond effectively to media claims of treatment ineffectiveness. However from the ashes of that…
Druglink article 2014 – 1987: Rehab funding – the funding crisis for rehabs by David Tomlinson
The 1990 Community Care Act changed the funding arrangements for places at residential rehabilitation placing the onus now on social services to provide the cash. Led by David Turner, SCODA fought a campaign to retain a ring fence around services…
Druglink article 2014 – 1989: Crack myths and realities in the UK by Robert Stutman
Crack cocaine first made its appearance in the UK around [date]. The stories coming out of the States were of whole communities being devastated by this new form of cocaine. And like smokable heroin in the UK, the effects of…
Druglink article 2014 – 1986: HIV and injecting drug use by David Turner
It was in 1981 that the link was first made in the USA between injecting drug use and the risk of contracting HIV, with the first UK drug-related infections reported in Scotland in 1983. From this was born the notion…
Druglink article 2014 – 1986: The battle for the right to prescribe – Doctors at war by Mike Ashton
Through the 1970s, consultant psychiatrists in the NHS drug clinics had been moving away from prescribing any injectable drug to oral methadone – and also on a reducing dose basis. But there were still doctors in the community (both private…