C.E.P.T.A.
The CAMPAIGN for EFFECTIVE PREVENTION and TREATMENT of ADDICTION.
One of the biggest problems the general public has in the field of medicine is the words which doctors and psychiatrists use. Some of you will no doubt know some of them, but for those who don't, may I please start by ensuring we all know what we are talking about in the field of Drug Prescribing and Drug Abuse Treatment.
The British National Formulary is a "pocket book" for use by doctors and nursing staff, and is jointly published by the British Medical Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. It is made necessary by the vast numbers of Indications, Cautions, Contra-Indications, Side-Effects and Dosage Directives associated with all forms of drugs.
So what do these words mean?
Indications: These are essentially a statement of what the manufacturers intend or expect a specific drug to be used for. An example would be "sea sickness", or say "headaches associated with colds and 'flu", or "aching joints", etc.
Cautions: These are a warning to take care when prescribing a specific drug under certain conditions, and they direct attention to circumstances requiring special care in administration or withdrawal, etc. Example "Usage not recommended whilst driving or working with machinery" or: "Do not cease usage abruptly, doses should be reduced gradually".
Contra-Indications: These are details of any medical conditions in the presence of which a specific drug should not be used. Example: "Not to be used in pregnancy or when breast-feeding". Or another example: "Not to be used by a patient prone to respiratory problems".
Side-Effects: This is probably the best known term in relation to medical drugs, it means those effects which a specific drug can create in addition to the one which is intended for that patient.
(Examples of side effects for just one minor drug are: constipation and for the same drug, would you believe - diarrhoea - plus tummy pains, headaches, dizziness, fatigue, hypersensitivity, chest tightness, facial flushing, fainting and a whole pile more symptoms in highly complicated medical terminology!)
Dosage Directions: These tell us how the drug is to be taken, how often and how much, and also whether certain age groups - children or the elderly for instance - require different dosing arrangements from others.
In a perfect world, this 750 page pocket-book is supposed to be consulted by the doctor, psychiatrist, pharmacist or other medical staff prescribing or treating a patient, at least on those occasions when they prescribe for or treat that patient for the first time.
The reason for this is that, because there are literally thousands of drugs listed and dozens of Cautions, Contra-Indications, Side-Effects and Dosage Directions for each of those drugs, no medical person has a cat in hells chance of knowing more than a few of the millions of vital facts in the BNF - which is why it is a pocket-book work of reference for regular daily use.
BUT, does it get USED? Or is it published mainly to protect the medical and psycho-pharmaceutical industry from criticism or from charges of trying to hide the problems drugs can create.
Some of you may have read the famous book "Betrayal of Trust" by Dr Vernon Coleman, or the equally well known book "Psychiatry - The Ultimate Betrayal" by Bruce Wiseman.
Both these well researched and excellent books describe how doctors, psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies have betrayed patients in this country and around the world.
More likely, many people will have seen the Channel 4 exposé of Doctors mistakes which reported 320,000 medical mistakes annually, resulting in over 40,000 deaths - and that's just in this country.
Iatrogenic illness is the name given to that class of medical problem which is caused by the medical profession itself.
That is - illness caused by doctors and psychiatrists in their daily practice. It ranges from removing the wrong organ to operating on the wrong patient. From prescribing the wrong dosage to prescribing the wrong drug. From giving the wrong antidote to prescribing drug treatments with horrendous side-effects.
That's iatrogenic illness, and some authorities consider that nearly 30% of all illnesses fall into this category.
Others say, because medical errors are so easy to cover up, that this 30% is comprised of only the very obvious things like removing the wrong kidney or operating on the wrong foot or the wrong patient.
Whilst the Thalidomide disaster which resulted in deformed children was apparent to the whole world, such authorities say that with the escalating prescription of drugs of all types, all severe and / or persistent side effects must be recognised as medically induced illnesses and their source challenged in every possible way . . . . AND that the inappropriate prescription of inappropriate drugs probably doubles that 30% figure.
In fact one whole conference was all about that part of iatrogenic illnesses and upsets which are caused by reckless Benzodiazepine prescription, and also often caused even by cautious benzo prescribing. The Benzodiazepines operate on the Central Nervous System and are the most commonly used hypnotic drugs, and those of you who have used or have cared for benzo users will have recognised their hypnotic effect and we all know the power which hypnosis can have to command a person.
"Ah", you may say, "but no one is being hypnotised - they're just taking a pill". Well the reason the British National Formulary describes a class of drugs as "hypnotics", is because when a person is under the influence of a hypnotic drug - such as benzos - when they have been taking such drugs, they are totally prone to accepting any verbal statement made to them - as an order !
When the Doctor or Psychiatrist says: "Take these 3 times a day", this is much more than a command they will obey. IT IS ALSO ONE OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF ADDICTION - because that command hypno-psychologically reinforces the physically addictive demand which the body builds up for that drug.
And it's not just the Doctor. We all help it along. Because when a patient is on one of the seven main benzos - or any of the other dozen or so main hypnotic drugs - then - your word is their command ! And when you say to Mum or Grandad: "Come on now, you know you should take your medicine" - boy does that have an unseen and powerful impact on them which you never intended!
So far I have mentioned only Drug Prescribing and the problems we all know that can produce.
But what about getting rid of those problems?
How do we repair the damage done by the benzos, all the other prescription drugs, the illegal drugs like cannabis, cocaine, crack and heroin, and other pharmaceutical drugs like the amphetamines and methadone, etc., as more and more pharma prescription drugs start to circulate at illegal street level.
So let's take a look at Drug Dependency Treatment, and what is being done - or better still - could be done to actually cure drug problems.
Successive governments have been
seriously mislead, precious resources have been diverted, and drug and crime
figures escalated as a result of what can only be called the trade
protection practices indulged in by many psycho-pharmacological
practitioners over the last decade or more. Yes - those very same people
who currently deliver the majority of drug abuse 'treatment' services in the
Enquiries made over the last years amongst officials (including members of both sides of both houses, civil servants, senior police officers, prison officials, probation officers, members of the courts and others) revealed that over 60% of these decision-makers wrongly believe that drug addiction is not capable of being cured.
As a consequence, many facets of
However, contrary to the "no-hope" messages from the powerful psycho-pharmacological lobby, all forms of drug and alcohol use, dependency and addiction can, in more than 69% of cases, be cured first time through by a rehabilitation programme already in use in 40 countries and more than 150 public access centres (plus prison units).
And these cure procedures can in many cases be just as effective in curing addiction to prescription drugs as they are in handling heroin, coke and methadone.
The number of existing drug-users increases every year by the addition of new users who have slipped through the prevention net, so that the way to reduce drug consumption and its accompanying crime, is to cure the existing users, whilst providing effective prevention methods to stem the tide of new users.
The fact that psychiatric drug 'treatments' seldom if ever cure drug addiction, is no reason for pretending that it cannot be cured by other people and other methods. As a result, drug prescribing psychiatrists must now stand aside and permit those whose methods are demonstrably effective to deliver the same results in this country as they regularly do in others.
Police surveys show that many chronic drug users (and this is not limited to illegal drugs) commit robberies and other acquisitive crimes on a regular daily basis, and they say that each addict is individually responsible for a greater number of crimes per year than any other section of the criminal fraternity.
This means that, curing just one heroin or methadone addict for life can cut crime in his or her district by some three to four hundred offences per year - which makes the cost of permanent rehabilitation look like peanuts in comparison.
There is however no way that truly effective cure-based rehabilitation can take its rightful place in our society whilst pharmaceutical drug based psychiatry continues to use every trick in the book to maintain its hold on the established field of treatment, by means clearly unconnected with effective results.
As a consequence, the first job of all dedicated anti-drug workers must be to provide a counter lobby which will expose the false data and downright lies which currently persuade policy-makers in directions they would not consider - IF they knew the truth.
AND THE TRUTH IS THAT: Alcoholism, drug use, drug dependency and addiction can all be cured.
AND THE TRUTH IS THAT: Most forms of drug prescription - especially for those psychiatric drugs which are now also being marketed through the local Medical Doctor's surgery to people Who Do Not Need Psychiatry - AND BENZOS ARE ONE OF THEM - are largely unnecessary to a solution of most patients' problems. In fact because of side effects and the other factors we are looking at, they actually can make things much worse, as most such prescription drug users already know to our cost – especially when over-prescribed.
Of the 3 Billion Pounds worth of drugs bought each year by the National Health Service from the pharmaceutical industry, something like one-third fall into the category of "un-safe" drugs paid for by all of us through our taxes.
So now we have to face the fact that
In other words, we have a parallel problem that is concerned only with the profits of the drug companies IN THE SAME WAY as street drugs feed the profits of the so-called "drug barons".
Why have the pharmaceutical drug pushers never found a cure for illegal drug usage? Because it's far more profitable to move users from illicit heroin to legally prescribed methadone, on which, at taxpayers' expense, the pharmaceutical drugs companies can make an expanding profit, and . . because, there's no more loyal customer than an addict !
No wonder that, in some chemical company circles the British NHS is jokingly referred to as the National WEALTH Service.
Referring back to the enquiries made amongst Members of the Houses of Lords and Commons, civil servants, police officers, prison officials, probation officers and others, we find that the 60% of these decision-makers who wrongly believed that drug addiction is not capable of being cured, had picked up that false idea from medical, psychiatric and pharmaceutical industry contacts.
Furthermore, the 40% who held a different opinion generally got it from similar sources and were given to understand that drug addiction is being cured ‘every week’ by psychiatric clinics up and down the country. However, careful enquiries made directly with such clinics reveal that NOT ONE - that's NOT ONE - offers a cure or will even talk about a cure !
Both of these opposing pieces of misinformation favour the psycho-pharmacological industry, and the trouble is that not much of this is likely to change whilst the resources needed to achieve comfortable lifelong abstinence are being squandered on psychiatric experiments, patient mis-management and 5 year Public Relations exercises like NTORS.
NTORS is the National Treatment Outcome Research Study being conducted by the psychiatric industry for the Department of Health. Which effectively means that your taxes and mine are being used to help the psychiatric industry examine the psychiatric industry and thus maintain the current pharmaceutical status quo, moving us towards consuming more and more medical drugs.
"And why not?" - say drugs industry bosses. Better, they claim, to have drug profits and the control of the addicted population in "our ethical hands", than in the hands of gangsters.
But who are the real gangsters? Surely, it’s the benzo pushers. The ones who pretend they are "just trying to help". Just like the drug rape perpetrator who says to the beautiful and innocent young maiden: "Here, take this pill - it will help your hangover, and no need to worry, I'm here to look after you" !
The only rational end goal for any form of drug addiction 'treatment' should be a result which first helps the addict and then also the community. Namely:
"A FULL CURE", resulting in comfortable Lifelong Abstinence.
This is why the only rational definition for a cure is: A fully employable former drug user or addict who:
i) since completing rehabilitation has not used his original addictive substance(s) for a period significantly in excess of 12 months,
ii) who remains fully convinced that he will comfortably abstain for life,
iii) who has not replaced such earlier usage with another addictive substance,
iv) who is now taking responsibility for his or her own life,
v) who no longer needs or wants further rehabilitative support, and,
vi) who is now willingly contributing to his or her local community.
SO, HOW can we tell the good treatment from the bad?
The short answer is: by examining the amount and nature of the results delivered by each system of 'treatment'.
The BIG Issue magazine survey of August ‘99 revealed the gross ineffective-ness of much of the currently delivered psycho-pharmacological 'treatment'.
And it is disturbing that, when Keith Hellawell was appointed U.K. Anti-Drugs Co-Ordinator, he discovered he already had a Deputy who had been appointed to 'relieve' Hellawell of all responsibility for matters concerned with
'treatment', a subject on which certain lobbyists clearly did not want Hellawell's keen and trained police mind authorised to investigate.
The reason is very simple. Without in any way implying that psychiatry and all psychiatrists are wrong, we have to recognise that most psychiatric counselling and psycho-pharmacological based methods of treatment do not consistently deliver worthwhile results (such as 'lots of cured addicts') as has been fully revealed, not only by the Big Issue's "DRUGS at the Sharp End" survey, but also by numerous other studies.
Straight-forward statistical counting of the results of the various so-called 'treatments' is side-stepped and avoided by bodies like SCODA, the ISDD (now together re-named as "DRUGS COPE"), the National Addiction Centre, the Maudsley Hospital, the Institute of Psychiatry and their appointed staffs. Yes, all those who are handling the National Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS) on behalf of the Department of Health.
With HM Custom's drugs seizures under the microscope and being counted, and with Police drugs arrests under the media spotlight and also being counted, is it too much to require that drug treatment systems should also be subject to official scrutiny on the basis of their actual results?
It is an inescapable fact that only a real cure can actually reduce the number of current drug addicts. And yet government persists in supporting these extremely doubtful therapies which at best often deliver only temporary "relief" or which are based on continuing "maintenance" for life.
But nothing less than the consistent ability to actually cure alcoholics and drug addicts – basically without giving them other drugs - will achieve the full success of any government policy or any Anti-Drugs Co-ordination programme.
The present government's excellent Drug Treatment & Testing Orders will not work for longer than a few months if 'rehabilitated users' just go on using. Employers will abandon staff assistance programmes if 'rehabilitated employees' go on creating the same workplace problems, and we could find ourselves having "Beat the Benzo" conferences every week if we fail to address the real problem - which is the psycho-pharmaceutical industry.
In addition to the Prevention and Cure of drug dependency, Culture Change is the activity needed within the society to permit effective prevention and real cures to take place.
Continuing efforts to preserve
That status-quo is based mainly on psycho-pharmacological practices (prescribing drugs and giving counselling) which are being increasingly abandoned in other countries, but so far not here.
These discredited practices, which in the North West started to be exposed by the BIG ISSUE in the North's survey of autumn ‘99, are maintained by the constant lobbying of vested interests who stand to lose millions of pounds worth of profitable business if the Department of Health withdraws recognition from any so-called treatment procedure utilising psychiatric counselling and / or drugs such as Methadone, Buprenorphine, Disulfiram and the benzos, etc.
Any honest medical man knows that his profession is riddled with drug abuse at all levels, and it was only in this last few years that one of the North's largest medical trusts appealed for help with their staff drug problems from the author of the U.K.'s most authoritative and highly successful workplace programme which helps develop, install and implement employers' "Substance Misuse Policies".
As a result, to thus consider treatment only in medical and psychiatric terms is to limit it to physicians who have provably failed to heal themselves !
The concept of a "cure" carries with it the idea that a practitioner comes along and prescribes something or does something to a drug user or addict, which results in him or her becoming free of drugs.
But this is not the case with successful drug treatment. Successful treatment is essentially self-imposed. by the user on himself.
The foundation of a successful cure is the developing and finally clear recognition by the individual that he is responsible for his own condition, and that he can himself improve that condition IF HE IS GIVEN A WORKABLE WAY TO DO SO.
The PR pushed idea that the value and validity of any given form of treatment of drug users can 'only' be assessed and approved by medically or psychiatrically trained personnel is rendered ridiculous by their own long term lack of consistently effective results in this field.
The most successful 'workable way' revolves around restoring an increasing sense of responsibility to the reforming addict and a rising regard for his or her own self-respect. Purging the body of drug toxins and stabilising the individual in the "here and now" are essential pre-requisites to resurrecting the ability to take responsibility and to again be proud of one's accomplishments, but it is the responsibility and self-respect factors which make possible the comfortable lifelong abstinence which is the hallmark of a truly successful cure.
However, it is important that we do not lose sight of the many wonderful things the medical profession does and can do for nearly all of us at some time in our lives.
The vast majority of doctors and medical staff are dedicated people desperately trying to do a good job under extremely difficult circumstances, and many medicines can of course be extremely useful in relieving symptoms, thus letting the body get on with its own fantastically effective self-healing and self-repair.
So your local GP and your average medical worker should not be targets for our complaint, except in one regard: . . . . PLEASE READ THE LABEL DOC. Please read your BNF pocket book every time you reach for a new prescription form.
And especially doctor, start rejecting all the expensive and enticing psycho-pharmaceutical lobbying materials and attractive free conference invitations which cross your desk every year.
Recognise that, with just a few exceptions, many of your discredited psychiatric colleagues have now become no more than one of the main marketing arms for the promotion (and prescription) of drugs, more drugs and even more drugs.
DOCTORS. Recognise the rotten apples in today's medical barrel. Recognise that the tail is now beginning to wag the dog. Advances in drug technology are not necessarily advances in medical results.
They are often much more intended to advance share prices and profits, as well as drug company control of world markets and their clients.
Because doctors are so overworked – by using advertising and PR, the pharmaceutical drug companies have even managed to take on what was the local doctor's friendly and helpful bedside manner.
But ask yourself doctor; look back over the last few years and ask yourself: - was the drug company which persuaded you to start prescribing the benzodiazepines really doing what was right for you, for your caring profession and for your patients ?
We all know the answer, and today we all know who to blame !
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This article is a transcript of a presentation prepared by Kenneth Eckersley for a national conference on involuntary addiction to the benzodiazepines and other psychiatric and pharmaceutical prescription drugs.
© Copyright C.E..P.T.A. and E. Kenneth Eckersley, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005. All World Rights Reserved
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