This paper aims to demonstrate the ways in which the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) militates against the interests and situations of people who use drugs. The author reflects on the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate the ways in which the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) militates against the interests and situations of people who use drugs. The author reflects on the author’s journey as a drug user, drugs workers and drug user organiser to critique the MDA. The author describes the impact of the MDA on the author’s early experimentation with substances and highlights the limitations of simplistic drugs prevention. The author describes how the MDA maximises drug-related risks and undermines the creation of healthy cultural norms and community learning among people who use drugs. The author talks about the author’s work as a drugs practitioner and mourns the vandalism of the UK’s harm reduction and drug treatment system. This paper describes the opportunity to use drug policy reform as a progressive electoral agenda to begin the journey towards racial and social justice. This paper calls for the rejection of the Big Drugs Lie and the repeal of the failed MDA.
Design/methodology/approach
Personal reflection based on experience as drug user, drugs worker and drug user organiser.
Findings
Successive UK Governments have used the MDA as a tool of social control and racial discrimination. The Big Drugs Lie undermines science-based and rights-compliant drug policy and drug services and criminalises and puts young people at risk. There is the potential to build a progressive political alliance to remove the impediment of the MDA and use drug policy reform as tools for racial and social justice.
Practical implications
The MDA maximises the harms faced by people who use drugs, stokes stigma and discrimination and has undermined the quality of drug services. The MDA needs to be exposed and challenged as a tool for social control and racial discrimination. Delivering drug policy reform as a progressive electoral strategy could maximise its potential to improve social and racial justice.
Originality/value
This paper represents the view of people who use drugs by a drug user, a view which is seldom expressed in the length and level of argument shown here.
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Abstract
Details
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G. Bombara, M. Cavallini and S. Maisano
Resistance to hydrogen embrittlement. Since cathodic protection is quite necessary and actually extensively applied for the electrochemical control of corrosion of immersed steel…
Abstract
Resistance to hydrogen embrittlement. Since cathodic protection is quite necessary and actually extensively applied for the electrochemical control of corrosion of immersed steel structures, adequate consideration must be given to the several deleterious effects of hydrogen (commonly included in the term ‘hydrogen embrittlement’) from overprotection.
IT is twenty years ago almost to the clay since the world was saddened by the news of the death of one of its heroes—Wilbur Wright. The inspiring story of the successful attack…
Abstract
IT is twenty years ago almost to the clay since the world was saddened by the news of the death of one of its heroes—Wilbur Wright. The inspiring story of the successful attack made by the two brothers, Wilbur and Orville, on the age‐long problem of human flight is too well known to be told at length here. But it is remarkable that the first flight by a motor‐driven aircraft on December 17th, 1903, was made only two years after Chanute, in a speech before the Western Society of Engineers, had felt compelled to use such cautious words as these: “There is some hope that, for some limited purposes at least, man will eventually be able to fly through the air.” Chanute made that speech when introducing a lecturer none other than Wilbur Wright himself. One wonders what the lecturer thought. What he said is on record and I quote a passage which tells us what it was that turned his and his brother's attention to the problem of flight: “My own active interest in aeronautical problems dates back to the death of Lilienthal in 1896. The brief notice of his death which appeared in the telegraphic news at that time aroused a passive interest which had existed from my childhood, and led me to take down from the shelves of our home library a book on ‘Animal Mechanism,’ by Professor Marey, which I had already read several times. From this I was led to read more modern works, and, as my brother soon became equally interested with myself, we soon passed from the reading to the thinking, and finally to the working stage.”
Aqueous internal corrosion of steel Scuba tanks is critically considered as a cause of explosive accidents during charging, storage and use of air cylinders. More restrictive…
Abstract
Aqueous internal corrosion of steel Scuba tanks is critically considered as a cause of explosive accidents during charging, storage and use of air cylinders. More restrictive safety regulations are shown to be needed in relation to the extremely high corrosion rates induced by high oxygen pressures. Accidental sea water entries are particularly dangerous because of tubular type localized attacks occurring in the presence of chlorides. Consideration is given to possible protective measures by phosphate conversion treatments and coatings.
On the twenty‐sixth of August, at the early age of fifty‐nine, WILLIAM HENRY CORFIELD passed away.
Each of these four books, recently published in U.S.A., is addressed primarily to a different circle of readers. “Simple Aerodynamics”, by C. N. Monteith (now Chief Engineer…
Abstract
Each of these four books, recently published in U.S.A., is addressed primarily to a different circle of readers. “Simple Aerodynamics”, by C. N. Monteith (now Chief Engineer, Boeing Airplane Co.), revised by Col. C. G. Carter, is a text book for the use of students of a highly specialised type, namely cadets of the U. S. Military Academy at which institution Col. Carter is Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. It is interesting to learn from the preface that since 1921 all such cadets take a course in Aerodynamics, whether their ultimate destination is the Air Corps or some other branch of service. The book suffers in many respects from being in the main a third edition of one written five years ago. After reading it one is strengthened in the opinion that a subsequent edition of an aeronautical text‐book should, for the present, be written on the same terms as Mr. A. P. Herbert's book for ‘La Vie Parisienne’ at the Lyric—the author should not be allowed to read the original.
Wherever one meets farmers, in a representative or private capacity, the same impression is left upon one's mind. The business of farming cannot go on long as things are. In…
Abstract
Wherever one meets farmers, in a representative or private capacity, the same impression is left upon one's mind. The business of farming cannot go on long as things are. In solemn tones, one is assured that “something must be done to help matters.” A close survey of past experiences leads agriculturists to expect little from Parliament, and there is an increasing disposition to explore what little fresh ground may remain in an attempt to obtain relief from an impossible position—impossible because of its prolongation rather than its passing severity. The idea seems to be to turn to the markets and systems of marketing, without, of course, neglecting the basic business of production. It is on the farms that the foundations of success are laid, and that fact will not be overlooked. But recent years have shown that something more than a foundation is necessary to ensure prosperity, or even to permit of endurance. The few adverse farming years, marked by a lack of sun, that preceded 1928 tended to obscure the issue, but the brilliant summer and autumn of the present year disclosed the fact that production was not the root cause of trouble in British farming, and showed that it was in the markets that the difficulties originated and developed. The lessons of the current year are clear and definite and, recognising the force of this exposure of crippling evils, and the possible line for remedial measures, agriculturists, with a unanimity that gives weight and encouraging significance to the suggested action, have resolved to direct their energies and inquiries into new channels. Instead of confining their attentions to their own deficiencies, and striving to discover on the farm remedies for the troubles that afflict them, they are determined to extend their investigations into the markets. They have not acted in haste in resolving upon this line of procedure. On the contrary, they have long been blamed for not paying greater attention to their markets—for not studying more carefully what the best buyers required, and for not establishing facilities for reaching the best markets more directly and at less cost to themselves. There appears to be no one supreme authority through which a move could be made to establish better and more equitable conditions for the marketing of home‐grown produce. In the absence of such a body or Department, it is suggested that the Empire Marketing Board might be induced, or enabled, to come to the assistance of farmers in their efforts to improve their position in their own markets. The Ministry of Agriculture has done good service already, and may achieve still better results; but greater concentration is needed in some directions than has yet been attempted. The Empire Marketing Board may be restricted in the manner in which it can render help, but if its sphere of action could be extended to permit of its giving definite information concerning the relative values of alternative supplies of food, the Board would do a great work both for home agriculture and the consuming public. Existing institutions have not given satisfaction to British farmers in so far as their inquiries into matters of this kind have been directed and carried out up till now. Producers and consumers are left in ignorance regarding the relative merits of home and oversea foods of various kinds. The idea that obtains among thinking farmers is that such inquiries as have been made have been planned to favour their competitors. Whether or not such an impression has any justification may be disputed, but it is surely unwise to allow the impression to remain for want of evidence to the contrary. The Ministry of Health has not disproved this view of things, and home producers are becoming impatient with the manner in which their interests are considered in high quarters. The Ministry of Agriculture, it is believed, is working with diligence and wisdom to the limit of its powers, but the opinion is gaining ground that the Empire Marketing Board is the only hope of straightening out things on an equitable basis that would give justice to the producers in the home country. Marketing business need not be interpreted too literally or narrowly. The realisation of produce does not consist merely in placing goods on the market. The grading and classification of commodities would certainly come within the scope of prudent trade development. The suggestion is that the Empire Marketing Board might devote attention to investigations into the nutritive values of foods from different sources, not as they leave the country of production but as they are delivered to consumers in this country. There is wide scope for useful inquiry in this direction. No strong case for investigation might exist concerning articles such as wheat, which presumably do not deteriorate in transit. But in the case of meat, dairy produce, and other perishable commodities, it is believed that the treatment to which the articles have to be subjected to permit of travel affects their food value. It may be contended that chemical evidence exists to satisfy the authorities on this point already. But experienced stockowners, for instance, who have studied the feeding of their herds and flocks, will not accept analytical results as infallible proof. They insist that there should be actual demonstrations of food values. The Empire Marketing Board would do a great service if it could make good this deficiency on the part of the older authorities in respect to human food. It would be easy to suggest suitable lines for research and practical trials. There is, for example, the difference between fresh and chilled or frozen meat; between fresh and tinned milk; between fresh and synthetic cream. The question is far more urgent than appears to be imagined in Government centres. If the results should be different from what home producers expect or could wish, the position would be so much the worse for them. But they have reached a point in their fight against what they believe to be unequal opposition when they prefer to know the worst.—“The Times.”