C.E.P.T.A.
The CAMPAIGN for EFFECTIVE PREVENTION and TREATMENT of ADDICTION.
In their May 2004
issue, the Brussels based satirical E.U. magazine - “The Sprout” - published a review of what was thought by
many to be a spoof “confidential” memorandum supposed to have been addressed to
members of an imaginary ‘conspiracy-theory’ alliance or cartel of
pharmaceutical companies and linked influential psychiatric groups.
What caught the
attention of the magazine’s editors and prompted their closer investigation was
the pretty unarguable truth of the various plans, policies, strategies and
tactics attributed by the unknown author to his (or her) imagined “pharmaceutical industry trade promotion and
protection society”, thus prompting the editors to suspect and to try and
seek out a “whistle-blower” of some sort.
The article was
titled “The Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs”, the “goose” being your
neighbourhood drug addict who – by virtue of his irresistible habit - has no
choice but to buy or otherwise obtain his drug needs every day, either from a ‘pusher’ of illicit drugs or from a pharmaceutical
prescription source. And it became clear
that, because of the interdependency of illicit, licensed and prescription
drugs, competition rages between the illicit drug barons and the pharmaceutical
companies for the custom of drug users around the world.
Both these
massive opponents make money from initiating and maintaining lifelong addiction
to drugs so that, apart from the legal difference between these two rivals, the
main difference is in the manner in which they obtain their money. (In both cases however, it is the society which
actually pays.)
The drug barons
callously push their addicted illicit drug customers into more and more
acquisitive crime in order to pay for their daily ‘fix’ or ‘hit’.
But the psycho-pharms are far more
crafty. The legal addict pays nothing
for his prescription methadone or Subutex, etc., as the psycho-pharms have
cleverly and just as dispassionately arranged for the government to pay them
for the drugs out of funds collected from U.K. taxpayers.
But the
psycho-pharmaceutical drug pushers are another step up on the drug barons. Anyone starting on cannabis today has an
excellent chance of migrating to heroin at a later date. When he or she does so, the legal
pharmaceutical drug supplier has as much cause for rejoicing as the illicit
drug baron.
This is because market
research into drug usage shows that some three years or so after starting on
illicit heroin, a majority of such addicts will likely enter the so-called
‘treatment system’ to enrol for free daily prescription doses of methadone,
buprenorphine (or even medical heroin) – supplied by the psycho-pharms and paid
for by the taxpayers.
As a result, whilst psychiatrists in
schools are hooking our youth onto prescription drugs, alongside them drug
barons are enrolling our youngsters into the illicit drug scene, not realising
that, ultimately, they also are recruiting future customers for prescription
pharmaceutical drugs.
And this arises because legalised
drug usage by prescription
places the control, increasing
turnover and profit from addictive drugs
firmly in the hands of the
psycho-pharmaceutical industry.
Little wonder
that that industry and its fellow travellers are the greatest overt and covert
supporters of liberalisation and legalisation – because that is the easiest and
most inexpensive way to expand the world drugs market. Examples of this in the fields of addiction
are smoking and drinking. Look at the
escalated usage, tax evasion, theft and other crime in our legal tobacco
market. Look at the growing usage, tax
evasion, theft, violence and in-family and community crime in our licensed
alcohol market. And look at the size of
tobacco and alcohol profits !
The so-called
‘confidential’ leaked memo is concerned with the psycho-pharmaceutical
industry’s approach to drug addiction, treatment systems and expansion of world
wide drug use, and shows much of what is happening in the
psycho-pharmaceutical’s political world and why its campaigns for
liberalisation and legalisation are a main line to profit.
For those who
enjoy well researched tongue-in-cheek exposés, CEPTA has re-typed the now
famous ‘leaked’ ‘confidential’ memo which we received through the post, in
order to be able to reproduce it electronically below.
We don’t know who
took the trouble to write and circulate some hundreds or even thousands of his
(or her) ‘confidential’ memos but, like the editors of The Sprout we come to
the conclusion that the writer displays sufficient detailed knowledge of the
pharmaceutical industry and its psychiatric partners in grime, to confirm that
he (or she) is likely a ‘whistle blower’ within one of those industries.
of course I didn’t
copy it to you ! J.
FROM: THE JOINT STRATEGY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN
N.B.
‘G.T.L.G.’
likely means:
TO: U.K.
CARTEL MEMBER CEOs ONLY “Goose That
Lays Golden”
SUBJECT: REPORT ON THE ‘G.T.L.G. EGGS’ PLAN
REVISIONS
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
The following summarises the present status of the above
plan after incorporation of the revisions agreed upon by the Committee at the
end of our recent week-end conference.
The twin goals of the plan remain
unchanged. Namely:
i) that our industry and its allies will be the
only authorised suppliers,
producers, distributors and purveyors of
all drugs entering and
consumed in the U.K. drugs marketplace, and
ii) that the market is
to be continuously expanded by all possible
international, national and local
strategies.
1) The main aims of the plan are therefore
confirmed as:
a) To take total control of the
supply, production, distribution, marketing and sale of all drugs
consumed in the U.K. drugs marketplace.
b) To maintain current turnover levels
whilst working towards a continuing expansion of the main forms of drug
use – medical, behavioural control and recreational.
c) To maximise the financial
contribution of government towards the costs of supplying drugs to a
majority of the using population, and,
d) To ensure that all those
organisations and programmes, likely to impede a), b) & c) above, are
effectively immobilised or side-lined.
2) Because 1a) & b) above include all
currently illicit drugs, then the legalisation
of all illicit drugs is a primary target of our policies. This will not only avoid competition from
illegal suppliers by placing the supplying of all drugs under our ethical
control, but will also expand usage of such drugs at competitive prices.
3) Because 1a) above also includes those
legally licensed and / or prescribed drugs over which we already exercise
control, every effort is being made to avoid the entry and / or expansion into
the marketplace of alternative natural or nutritional substances from
non-pharmaceutical producers. At the
same time research on less controversial replacements for the flagging benzo
ranges also continues.
4) The requirement under 1a) above, for us to
take total control of the
U.K. drugs marketplace, has of course resulted in a necessity for us to be able
to equally control or strongly influence the Department of Health, the Home
Office, the Department for Education and Skills, the British Medical
Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society amongst others.
This in turn has given us considerable
influence over the National Health Service, H.M. Prison Service, the
Probationary Service, the National Treatment Agency, the Advisory Council on
the Misuse of Drugs, and the Drug Prevention Advisory Service.
Much of the credit for this good work
must go to the amalgamation and re-organising of DrugScope by Roger Howard
which, combined with the influence of our friends at Alcohol Concern (who share
offices with DrugScope), and our psychiatric colleagues at Denmark Hill, is now
achieving very significant influence over all those sectors of U.K
establishment decision-making directly or indirectly concerned with the control
or usage of drugs of all types. The Drug
Education Practitioners Forum, the Police Foundation, Liberty, the National
Children’s Forum, Release and Transform are but a few excellent examples of our
indirect influence over more numerous groups.
Amongst other successes, DrugScope now
virtually controls the All Party Parliamentary Drugs Misuse Group, the National
Drugs Help-Line and various Ministers, and because of these allies and other
contacts was able to be by far the biggest contributor of evidence to
the Home Affairs Select Committee.
5) Because
1b) above includes the maintenance of
current turnover levels, all forms of cure or rehabilitation treatment (other than those based on the use of habit
management drugs) must eventually be legislated out of operation.
Civil servants and successive UK
governments have been fully convinced, by our psychiatric colleagues and our
expanding DrugScope PR operation, that drug addiction is an incurable
congenital mental condition which ‘fortunately’ psychiatrists and other
physicians can manage in the community with pharmacological treatments.
As a consequence we will continue to
use our psychiatric and government departmental connections to ensure that all
treatment must be on a maintenance basis prescribing regular doses
(normally daily) of habit management drugs – mainly paid for by the taxpayer
via the NHS.
6) Because 1b) above also includes expansion, in order to maintain the
flow of new users entering the marketplace, all efforts at effective prevention
training by other organisations continue to be ridiculed, ‘exposed’ and
generally side-lined by DrugScope and their libertarian allies so as to rob
them of funding. The main aim of our
strategy will continue to be our development of youth and child drug use by all
means possible. The young are much
easier to influence and of course have a longer ’customer life’ than adults.
We will therefore continue to
reinforce those of our marketing operations directed at UK youth and their
parents. ‘Harm reduction’, ‘informed choice’, ‘responsible drug use’ and ‘safe
drug use’ will thus remain the main planks in school PR campaigns. This drug education agenda promotes drug
usage as basically inevitable, and so essentially permits it on an apparently
controlled basis. Some members expressed
concern that ‘prevention’ training was again expanding in the schools system,
but a recent DrugScope report to the Committee described the start (in
DrugScope’s Associated DrugLink magazine) of a successful media attack on two
main prevention organisations – NDPA and NN.
Details of further funding for
this work were also agreed. (See
financial report attached.)
7) Because of the demand for expansion and government financial contribution expressed in both 1b) and 1c)
above, there must also be a reinforcement of direct psychiatric medical
intervention in UK schools, based on the prescription of Prozac, Ritalin and
other behavioural control drugs to suitably selected children. New psychiatric illnesses recently developed
and published in the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic &
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders are paving the way to the introduction
of further drugs into our schools prescription programme.
Steps are also being taken to
introduce the same new psychiatrically sponsored conditions into the Mental and
Behavioural Disorders Section of the next edition of the World Health
Organisation ICD (the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and
Related Health Problems).
Distribution of behavioural control
drugs by prescription to selected groups
is possibly our most valuable programme currently running. We avoid the costly and fragmented process of
marketing to individuals, each newly enrolled education authority or school
bringing us worthwhile numbers of new patients for which government pays. And because we start at the bottom of the age
range, each user has the maximum customer life ahead of him, whilst up to the
age of 16 within the schools system we enjoy direct control over each
patient.
8) Because 1c) above requires the maximisation
of the financial contribution of government towards the cost of supplying
drugs to a majority of the using population, the treatment of
existing and new problem drug users
must be kept in psycho-pharmaceutical hands in order to ensure maximum turnover
of addiction management drugs such as methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone,
etc.
As a result, funds for recent plans
by the government to increase the number of places for rehabilitation of drug
users must be kept in the hands of those providers of treatment based
exclusively on the administration of habit management drugs. As these were essentially Trace contacts and
as he could still be useful, the idea is being fostered amongst them and
elsewhere that he was given a very raw deal.
In addition our PR people will
continue to cultivate Drug Action Team Co-ordinators and Chairmen, to ensure
that the DAT funds are not misdirected into other non psycho-pharmacological
channels.
In this regard, the National
Treatment Agency’s nearly completed “Models of Care” plan intended to eliminate
(officially) all non-pharmacological treatments – is about to start achieving
this second stage of what we expected from DrugScope’s covert development of
this agency. By having as the first
stage a senior DrugScope employee appointed as the Agency’s establishment-phase
Director of Personnel, the goal of having a government agency staffed nearly
exclusively by allies was fully achieved.
Fortunately, the Mike Trace fiasco has
done little to upset our plans for the NTA as he was already destined for the
international scene.
However it is clear that something
must be done about MP and SD at the Mail, who must be brought into line with
their other press colleagues.
9) Because 1d) calls for the immobilisation
of organisations and programmes likely to impede 1a), b) & c) above, and
because the most likely threats will come
i)
from prevention based training programmes and
ii) from vitamin based
and other abstinence therapies,
such programmes and therapies must
be obstructed not only by black media campaigns, but also by appropriate UK and
European legislation.
Prevention based training programmes
for schoolchildren (as well as PTAs) will soon be handled into obscurity by the
‘Blueprint’ plan, which is being developed by a regional director of the Home
Office Drug Prevention Advisory service.
Here again we are fortunate to have a DrugScope trained ally in a
sensitive and influential post, so that drug education in ‘harm reduction’, ‘informed choice’, ‘responsible drug use’ and ‘safe
drug use’ will; soon become an integral and unassailable part of DfES
curricula. At the same time, our
continuing derision of ‘prevention training’ will again ensure that such
prevention programmes receive no official funding and that they will also be
looked upon as politically incorrect by charitable and other fund providers.
The vitamin based and other abstinence
therapies are being handled in two ways.
The NTA Models of Care plan will essentially authorise only our
psycho-pharmacological treatments. Those
treatments which do not base themselves on the dispensing of habit management
and / or other drugs will thus be deprived of official funding. Additionally the work already under way in
Brussels and Strasbourg, for outlawing large dose format natural vitamin
supplies, will not only soon start bringing these non-conforming treatments to
a halt, but will also put the European and UK supplying of vitamins into our
hands on a small dose profitable daily supply basis retailed only by
established high street chemists and other allied or controlled pharmaceutical
outlets.
10) The National Treatment Outcome Research
Study (NTORS) being carried out by our Denmark Hill psychiatric colleagues has
of course been proving successful at holding political curiosity at bay for a
considerable time, and the final fifth year report is now due for publication –
if it is not already circulating as a confidential pre-release briefing to our
various allies in the bureaucracy.
Whilst from a technical viewpoint it
is expected to have a mixed reception in certain quarters, along with CARAT and
DT&TOs, it has achieved its basic PR objectives and provided the time
necessary to develop the NTA and to see our further entrenchment in the Drug
Action Team (DAT) network. This has been
made even more vital by the recent government channelling of new and additional
drug treatment finance via the various DATS, and DrugScope have outlined their
plans for maximising control of this spending via the NTA.
11) Payments to physicians for prescribing drugs
possibly harmful to the patient (such as methadone) are still needed to
persuade reluctant G.Ps to ‘assess’ the value of these products to their local
community. Members should therefore
ensure that their local NHS and political contacts are fully aware that these
payments are vital to current drug treatment modalities, even though item 12)
below may eventually be helpful in this regard.
12) The project for the public to be able to
purchase prescription drugs – without need of a prescription – over the
internet is going according to plan, with these new sales now beginning to
escalate, and thus far there has been no government protest or action from any
of the countries being reached.
Members wishing to examine the
excellent prices this method of distribution can command may do so by visiting
the outlet at pharmulnimbsy@ox.ac.uk.
They should also bear in mind that because such supplies are direct to the
public, all the mark-ups and margins on this distribution line accrue directly
to the manufacturing companies supplying the products.
Clearly a new form of distribution
which also gives greater consumer control, as a result of which reports on such
trading will now be issued monthly to members.
13) For those interested, transcripts of the
main papers presented at the conference are available to Committee Members, as
follows:
* A) Liberalisation,
Decriminalisation and Legalisation Plans and Progress.
* B) The
DrugScope Annual Progress Report and Update.
* C) Plans
to Take Advantage of the Impending NTORS Completion (and for a
parallel
long-term follow-up campaign in the drug education sector).
* D) The
Latest from the Denmark Hill Diary and Other Psychiatric Allies.
* E) Networking
Within the WHO, the NGOs and Europe.
* F) New
Product Design Directions & Opportunities Amongst the Young.
* G) Beyond
the Benzos. Opportunities Amongst Adults
and the Elderly.
* H) Improving
Political and Media Control – U.K. Ally Entertaining Plans.
* I) Covert
Conference Support Plans – Current & Future Financing.
* J) Useful
Individuals and Organisations – Who to Contact for What.
* K) Mergers
– Is Inter Company Co-operation Now Making them Obsolete?
* L) The
Magic Bullet – Why a Search for Addiction Cures is Not Advised.
* M) Financing
Our Fifth Column Allies. (Mike Trace and
Co’s New Roles.)
* N) The
UK’s Role in Europe and Vice Versa – Plans for Vienna.
* O) Raw
Material Supplies: Is buying from the Drug Barons the Answer?
* P) The
NHS and the NTA – Can the Tail Wag the Dog?
* Q) Security:
Recent Threats and Proposals for their Handling.
14) I would respectfully remind Members that the
current quarter’s ‘Protection and Expansion Fund’ donations are due with me not
later than the last day of this month and year, and I would in any event like
to report that these are all to hand at the next scheduled meeting with GS’s
Open Society Institute.
15) Finally: Our Next Committee Meeting:
The suggested venue is again
Berchtesgarten, and the month is March.
As agreed at the conference, I await lists of two acceptable March
weekends from each Member to enable me to finalise a date convenient to a
majority.
J. S. C.
Chairman.
Bearing in mind that, contrary to what their PR says, pharmaceutical
companies are not charities . . . . what is your verdict?
1) Can
this “confidential” memo really be some form of practical joke? Jokers love an audience and usually stay
around for the laughs and for their applause, so why has the writer not made
him or her self known and claimed the credit?
2) Can
this “confidential” memo perhaps be a hoax perpetrated by someone with a
genuine grudge against the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry? We know that many involuntary addicts (and
others like “The Prozac Victims Group”) who were prescribed into addiction, do
hold rather large grudges - with what they consider to be good reason - against
the psycho-pharmaceutical fraternity.
But these are most often quite elderly ladies on tranquillisers, etc.,
who would not normally have the intimate knowledge of the drug scene
demonstrated by the writer of that memo.
3) Can
this “confidential” memo be a fictitious document written by some anonymous
senior employee experienced in, but disillusioned with, the psycho-pharm
industry, who feels that the guilt of his employers can no longer be hidden and
that it must be exposed so that something humanely effective can be done about
it?
4) Or
can this “confidential” memo perhaps be a copy of a real inter-committee
memo the contents of which some such employee felt had to be “whistle-blown”
for the greater good of the community at large.
Most observers feel it came from the
third or fourth possible source indicated above but that, more importantly, it does reveal
a genuine state of affairs which must be addressed !
Confirmation From
Another Reliable Source
– The Methadone
User:
Confirmation of what? Confirmation that psycho-pharmacological
‘therapies’ based on habit management or ‘maintenance dosing’ reduce neither
addiction nor the crime which daily accompanies drug usage in order to finance
it.
Confirmation also that current
so-called anti-drug strategies are clearly orientated towards making more
turnover and more profit for the drug companies instead of being aimed at
curing drug addiction.
In August 1999, The BIG ISSUE in the North Trust issued a 48 page A4
report entitled “DRUGS at the Sharp End” detailing an investigation into the
results of psycho-pharmacological treatment – most specifically methadone
maintenance – and this was accompanied by the following single page executive
summary:
THE BIG ISSUE
IN THE NORTH
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS FROM THE DRUGS RESEARCH REPORT
KEY FINDINGS FROM THE REPORT:
With regard to drug users interviewed:
* A third of the drug users had been in
contact with services for more than five years.
12% had been in service for over 10 years.
* A third felt they had been attending
drug services for too long. These were
split equally between those who felt services were making little effort to help
them become drug free and those who felt they weren’t ready to stop using.
* Of those on prescribed methadone, 80%
also used street drugs on a weekly basis, particularly heroin. 44% of those on prescribed methadone also
used heroin on a daily basis.
* Although a quarter of users said they
received counselling, twice as many said it was important.
* The services that users said they
received were mainly medical interventions such as methadone
prescriptions.
* 17% of those on prescribed methadone
are injecting heroin at least occasionally and are not using needle exchanges.
* Only 11% were working, over half (61%)
lived in rented accommodation, more than half (54%) had lost regular contact
with their children.
* Breakdown in relationships, crime and
an inability to gain employment were all prominent features of their lives and
were directly related to their drug usage.
* Although half of users wanted more
community based drug services, only a third said that GPs were the best place
to receive drug services.
In addition, service providers felt
that services were not adequately meeting the level of demand. In particular, they felt that stimulant users
(e.g. crack, cocaine and amphetamines) were not well catered for.
WHAT A TOTAL DENIAL,
REJECTION AND CONDEMNATION OF VESTED INTEREST CLAIMS FOR THE SO-CALLED ‘VALUE’
AND EFFICACY OF PSYCHO-PHARMACEUTICAL TREATMENT !
- PARTICULARLY METHADONE -
Let’s take a closer look at those claims and the results which are
revealed by the highly respected BIG ISSUE in the North report.
Methadone was recommended to
government by the psycho-pharms as definitely procuring abstinence for
life via “a methadone reduction programme”
- but 55% of those interviewed had been on methadone for from 1 to 5
years,
and 45% had been on methadone
for from over 5 to more than 10 years !
Methadone was recommended to
government as stopping heroin usage
- but it does so in only 20% of cases and 44% use heroin on a daily
basis !
Methadone was recommended to
government as so-called “harm reduction”
- but 17% continue to inject heroin without benefit of needle exchange
!
In addition the methadone itself
causes a wide range of unhealthy and
uncomfortable side-effects and
in most cases shortens the user’s life.
Methadone was recommended to
government as permitting opiate users to live a “basically normal life” in
full time employment
– but 89% are not working and so are receiving Unemployment Benefit,
Housing
Benefit, Income Support, Family
Allowances, extra National Health Benefits
and other support, all paid for
by the U.K. taxpayer.
Methadone was recommended to
government by the psycho-pharms as helping to restore family relationships
- but breakdown in relationships are a prominent feature of their lives,
and 54% had lost regular contact
with their children.
Methadone was recommended to
government by the psycho-pharms as reducing crime by stopping
heroin usage
- but with 44% on daily heroin and 80% on weekly heroin (plus other
illicit drugs),
the necessity for acquisitive
crime to support procurement of such illegal
supplies is virtually as high as
ever, and many police feel that daily methadone
supplies are regarded by users
as a welcome free supply which gives them
more time to plan better crimes
with less likelihood of their being caught !
Normally at this point one could
expect to think: “Need we say more”, and could assume that government would
look at these stark facts and do something about them. But they don’t hear and they don’t see,
because for years vested interests have been covering decision-makers’ eyes and
ears with fancy PR statements and lying lobbying.
But our government is not blind and neither is it deaf nor stupid nor
evil. So it is therefore these
blindfolds and ear-plugs which C.E.P.T.A. strives to remove.
© Copyright
C.E..P.T.A. and E. Kenneth Eckersley, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 &
2005. All World Rights Reserved