As on the Government Blog itself, I request that you keep you language decent and in check and not to make abusive or libelous comments - however tempted you are!
The Home Office are keen to hear from people that support their feeble, illogical and constantly failing efforts to recognise the REAL CAUSES of problematic drug use and halt drug use.
This is the introduction to the Home Office Blog:
Welcome to the Drug Strategy blog!
Posted on March 7, 2011 12:01
This is the recent hypocrisyAs the Home Office Minister with responsibility for drugs and alcohol, I'm delighted to be launching this blog pilot and to invite your comments as key delivery partners.The new strategy is aimed at supporting and enabling those dependent on drugs and alcohol to recover fully, reducing the demand for drugs and taking an uncompromising drive to crack down on those involved in the drugs trade.
It also addresses the issue of so-called "legal highs" through the development of temporary banning orders, improving the forensic analytical capability to detect new psychoactive substances and establishing an effective forensic early warning system.
As we shift power and accountability to local areas to tackle the damage that drugs and alcohol dependence cause our communities, we really want to hear from you, on your challenges and successes in achieving the ambitions of the strategy.
I know you'll be keen to be updated by us too, particularly on centrally led areas of strategy delivery as they begin to get underway.
For example, there has understandably been considerable interest in the Payment by Results (PbR) pilots for drugs recovery that are being led by the Department of Health. Sixteen local areas in England were short-listed as potential pilot sites, twelve of whom submitted full proposals last week. You can see the list of partnerships that have chosen to go to full proposal stage at the bottom of this page. Next month the successful pilot sites will start work with the PbR project team to begin co-designing the detail of the pilots, with the aim that they are up and running from October 2011.
I'm aware there is some concern being expressed about the process of setting up the PbR pilots, primarily a misconception that we are deliberately excluding providers from being considered as part of the pilots. This is not the case. Local partnerships hold the budgets and so must be in charge of creating their own offer to ensure it meets local needs. That is why we are working through these partnerships whilst recognising the absolute need to draw upon the expertise of providers, commissioners and others in the sector.
I know some of you are worried that local partnerships will not change their commissioning to support the new strategy's greater ambition for recovery. Let me make it clear, as we did in the strategy, that to build a recovery focussed system, local areas will need to jointly commission services that deliver "end to end" support. Close links will need to be built between community, in-patient and residential treatment and rehabilitation providers, who in turn will need to forge close links with aftercare services.
There are clear indications that some areas are already developing this approach, in order to deliver recovery outcomes. For example David Oliver, the Head of Drugs and Alcohol at the Home Office, visited Liverpool recently and saw a service which has refocused its efforts from a harm minimisation to a recovery approach.
I've asked David to take forward the blog over the next two weeks. Whilst he won't be able to acknowledge every comment personally, he will respond regularly on the main themes arising from your comments, so please do get involved.
Finally, you will remember that we sought the views of those involved in the drugs sector to support the development of the new drug strategy. A big thank you to those of you responded. The publication of the strategy established the framework to deliver our ambitions to restrict supply, reduce demand and build recovery. As we move forward into implementation, I hope that the blog will develop as a useful way to continue to engage with you. It will run initially for two weeks and then be evaluated to see if this is a helpful way to share views and ideas, successes and challenges.
I look forward to reading your comments.
James Brokenshire
David Oliver - Head of Drugs and Alcohol Unit said...March 8, 2011 14:40There have been a number of posts along a similar theme, advocating liberalisation and decriminalisation as a way to deal with the problem of drugs and we have published a representative sample. I hope that those who have taken the time to comment understand the need to keep this blog focussed on its aim as a forum for key delivery partners to share ideas about the implementation of the drug strategy. This Government does not believe that liberalisation and legalisation are the answer and this blog is not intended to be a discussion forum around the drugs legal framework, on which this Government has already made its position clear.
So David Oliver, are you saying that because the Government has closed it's ears to any concept involving legalisation / decriminalisation / of drugs you are going to censor out any comments that do not agree with your policy of prohibition, despite the fact that you seem to recognise its failure?
ReplyDeleteoooo avoiding an investigation and evidence ,sod the royal commission ,open a criminal investigation on the grounds of suspected policy for cash corruption for all those rejecting an investigation and evidence based policy !
ReplyDeleteSeeing as you appear to be looking at the topic from a 'harm minimisation and recovery approach' may I suggest that if you addressed the issue correctly and stop ignoring valid scientific research there would less emphasis on 'harm minimisation and recovery' in the first place.If the Government has already made it's position so very clear I would suggest that you have no need for this discussion forum. I'm very interested in the fact that few key delivery partners seem to have yet commented on the implementation of the drug strategy and as with the ACMD (or the lack of them as the case may be) I am appalled to admit that any comments scientifically proven or not would be ignored anyway. It is also shameful that your expectations and ambitions to restrict supply, reduce demand and build recovery will continue to fail miserably as they have done for the last 40 years unless you begin to listen to people who actually have such far superior knowledge and expertise within the field of substance misuse and policy reform compared to oneself.
ReplyDeleteI will report my censored reply to their corrupt prohibitionist get together blog.
ReplyDeleteI am so concerned to watch you all support organised crime and follow the same blinkered approach to drugs of years gone by that will make zero impact on the problem, you are so detached from real working class lifestyles that it seems our ...lives are akin to you playing a computer game and if you get it wrong you feel you can simply press reset and start again!
Well, each time you implement your bungling, ineffective con man rehabilitation supporting shallow policies and spend more time pretending to tackle the issue to protect your public image, real people are suffering, in need of a government with real men leading it, real men that aren't afraid to upset the apple cart to get rid of the bad apples instead of polishing the bad apples in a vein attempt to hide the problem.
Prohibition of cannabis especially is a crime against nature! There are millions that are reduced to feeling like criminals because of gutless approaches to a problem you can't afford to fix, you will never control the borders to an effective end, it's physically impossible, there is a huge demand from drugs that your privileged, cotton wool wrapped lifestyles will never understand. We give you your power to do good with, to protect society by creating and enforcing policies based on evidence and not uneducated public opinion, which are stained by propaganda and lies.
Even David Cameron knows nothing of the medical benefits of cannabis and recently broadcast lies on YouTube regarding it's dangers, a disgustingly unforgivable ignorant stance which broadcasts how totally out of touch you all are regarding drugs.
You even play shuffle with the members of the ACMD because you refuse to listen to experts in this field that don't agree with forging policies based on your shallow, blinkered fact less, prohibitionist idealisms of how to force society to think like you, we will never think like you because we live in the real world, you have all forgotten who you really are, it's a wonder you don't need PR company representation just to look in the mirror, because I would hate to see what you see when you do so because your ignorance causes real suffering and you are too gutless to make real positive changes! I bet you drink though don't you and that causes millions of deaths annually, acceptable? Total double standards!
I asked Trevor, the reformed addict and advocate of the law; how did the message of law miss him, and why does he now have faith in it given he is an example of it's abject failure.
ReplyDeleteThat one didn't get through. I've never had an answer to that question. The search continues.
I wrote:
ReplyDelete"Please can you take a more compassionate stance on medical cannabis.
It even helps Autistic people like me.
Thank you and God Bless"
And they allowed it, so we've got medical cannabis mentioned once. I'm a bit embarrassed about the punctuation but never mind, can't be bad. No reply to it yet so I hope they are mulling it over in some way.
I would like to see an end to all drugs prohibition.
ReplyDeleteIt leaves the drug market in the hands of criminals. They can mix the drugs with other potentially harmful substances.
If heroin and cocaine were legal, the people who took them could get medical advice on right dosage, therefore preventing overdoses.
If these substances were in the hands of doctors and not dealers, it would greatly reduce the number of addicts, because doctors do not have a vested interest in creating drug dependence in their patients.
Cannabis is not a narcotic nor a drug. It is a plant product and should be treated as such, freely grown for personal use, or sold, following the Dutch framework.
LSD and MDMA too should be available to those over 18 who require them. As they are non-addictive, but also potentially harmful, maybe they too should only be available from the doctor.
By removing profit from the drugs market, we are removing finances from criminals, and making drug use safer for those who choose that path. I am sure many deaths by overdose or misadventure would have been prevented if the people using them had received clear and open advice from an expert.