November 2015 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 15
IF THE LIB DEMS HAVE ANY
FUNCTION NOW
, it’s on issues such
as drug decriminalisation, child
detention, prison reform,
surveillance: civil liberties. With
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour we have a
puritanical left where personal
freedom is less important than some
holier-than-thou posturing. The hair
shirt opposite of Theresa May’s
nastiness… We could do with a party
that believes in personal
freedom. It’s a shame it’s
led by the semi-vicarish
Tim Farron, but if they can
puncture some of the
hypocrisy on drug laws,
good for them. This is hardly
radical, just sensible.
Suzanne Moore,
Guardian
,
12 October
HAD THE E-CIGARETTE BEEN
INVENTED
and patented by a
pharmaceutical company and
promoted by the government, it
would have failed. Big Pharma
would have called the device Niquo-
Stop453, made it from plastic,
packaged it in boring green and
white and sold it in chemists’ shops.
No bureaucrat or corporate lackey
would have thought, ‘What if we
call it Unicorn Puke and sell it like a
high-end electrical product?’ To
ExchangE
More good practice stories at
FOR OVER FIVE
YEARS
, arts charity
Create has helped
vulnerable women
in east London
make steps to
reshape their lives
through the creative
arts. In collaboration
with international
law firm Reed Smith
LLP and U-Turn Women’s Project, Create’s
workshops reach women of all ages who have
been trapped in cycles of prostitution, drug
addiction, physical abuse and homelessness
from an early age.
Since July, the women have been working
with Create’s professional actor and playwright
James Baldwin, collaborating to write original
stories and outline plots that feature a
problem, a journey, an obstacle and a solution,
echoing the challenges that they have
experienced themselves. This has allowed
them to share their experiences and expand
their support networks to include other
vulnerable women within their community.
Every year, women are forced into
prostitution through a combination of
homelessness, drug use, poverty and domestic
violence, which accounted for 30 per cent of
all violent crime in Tower Hamlets in 2009-10.
Create uses the creative arts to inspire self-
confidence in vulnerable women who attend
the U-Turn centre, encouraging them to
develop trust, friendships, communication
skills and pride through collaborative
activities. These skills and qualities can then
be used in day-to-day life, helping the women
reclaim control over their futures.
Margaret has a history of drug use but is
currently in recovery and has been abstinent
for seven years. She attended the centre
initially for general support with benefits and
some ongoing confidence issues, but is more
confident and independent now. ‘You learn so
much,’ she says of the workshops.
‘Communicating with other people that you
really don’t know and things like that. A lot of
my confidence went and I have just started to
get my confidence back since coming here. It
had been gone for years and years.’
Nicky Goulder is CEO of Create
ming.lives
Nicky Goulder
talks about how an
acting workshop is helping vulnerable
women in east London
‘I have just
started to get
my confidence
back since
coming here...’
smokers, switching to Niquo-
Stop453 would have felt like a sad
compromise: like being treated for a
disease. Switching to Unicorn Puke
feels like a choice.
Rory Sutherland,
Spectator
,
24 October
WHATEVER ALCOHOL COMPANIES
DO
to fight back against the
declining popularity of booze, deep
changes in British culture have made
booze less attractive. Forget the
horrific tales of drunken escapades
from Magaluf to the Bullingdon
Club. The real story is of the strange
death of boozy Britain.
Tim Wigmore,
New Statesman
,
9 October
THERE IS A CONTRADICTION
at the
heart of the policy agenda, where a
rhetorical commitment to patient
choice turns out to be fatally
compromised by a paternalism that
the health service claims to have
abandoned. Patronising people and
protecting them from themselves
just won’t wash anymore. If we
choose to smoke or vape, or drink
or eat too much, that should be up
to us.
Dave Clements,
Guardian
,
1 October
A BALANCED ASSESSMENT
of the
evidence, rather than the ideology,
surely is the best guide to policy. For
my own part, a softening of the
legislation on drug use (coupled, of
course, with access to medical
treatment), combined with a
hardening of social attitudes
against it appears the most fruitful
way forward.
Hamish McRae,
Independent
,
21 October
The news, and the skews, in the national media
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