The Alternative Home Office Drug Strategy Blog - WRITE HERE!

Since James Brokenshire MP and his colleague have decided to censor their Home Office Drugs Strategy Blog to disallow comments from those that do not agree with their strategy of prohibition and treatment, I've decided to give people a chance to write what they really want to say here.

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

As 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

 This is the recent hypocrisy

David Oliver - Head of Drugs and Alcohol Unit said...

March 8, 2011 14:40

There 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.

UK Government Favours Drugs over Plants Remedies

It is now surely 100% obvious that there is something happening behind the public eye that makes this Government refuse to acknowledge the medicinal value of the cannabis plant - it is MONEY from the big Pharmaceutical companies that will make fortune out of their extracts whilst supporting the punishment of people that grow exactly the same type of plant that they use to make their blood-money.

 
In a letter received by an associate recently, (see page 1 and page 2) writen to his MP by James Brokenshire MP of the UK Home Office, he sates that despite Government's plans to re-schedule the cannabis-extract preparation called Sativex under the Misuse of Drugs Act Regulations 2001, which will make it medically available (at huge cost) in the UK, the Government stubbornly and ignorantly refuse to accept that the cannabis plant itself has medicinal value.

Mr Brokenshire wrote: "I should make it clear that the ACMD's advice on 'Sativex' and the future scheduling of this product do not effect, in any way, the scheduling of raw cannabis.  Cannabis is and will remain a schedule 1 drug under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, as we do not recognise that it has any medicinal value"

Where have our  MP's been?  The fact is, the cannabis plant has been used medicinally for thousands of years and in fact was available over the counter in the UK until 1971, when it was banned supposedly to try to halt the so-called "recreational use".

The Home Office ruling is nothing other than a bias towards big industry that have so much power over us as individuals.  For the price of one short course of Sativex many many therapeutic plants could be grown and supplied to the many many thousands of people that could benefit from it.

Shame on the UK Government!