C.E.P.T.A.
The CAMPAIGN for EFFECTIVE PREVENTION and TREATMENT of ADDICTION.
6c. THE DRUG SCENE’S WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
How so-called ‘Harm Reduction’ can lead to increasing drug usage, legalisation and control by vested interests.
At first sight, seeking to reduce the harm created by drug-use sounds like a great idea. If an individual is already an addict, it would seem to make sense to give him clean needles in order to reduce the risk of him adding AIDS, HIV or Hepatitis to his existing drug problem.
If dedicated users can gain from knowing the best drugs for them and their already addicted way of life, then by all means inform them of the choices available. Especially as many claim they have the right to decide their own way to die.
How to use drugs ‘responsibly’ also sounds like a good idea for instructing those already using irresponsibly (e.g. in the presence of children or when pregnant) and how to use drugs ‘safely’ seems to be a ‘must’ for those already in process of unwittingly killing themselves. And in these few paragraphs we have the four cornerstones of the harm reductionists’ logical sounding arguments for the handling of existing drug addicts.
However, contemplating their application to non-users, reveals they are based on a series of blatantly false considerations - namely:
a) that “prevention of drug use is not possible” (although history and
current statistics prove the opposite),
b) that “we cannot cure drug addiction” (even though cures are
achieved every day),
c) that in any event you are “inhibiting personal rights” if you try to
prevent or cure drug addiction, and,
d) that because “everyone is likely to use drugs at some time” (an
absolute lie), so that guidance on HOW TO USE THEM is the key
lesson for everyone! (another lie.)
Unfortunately, as a result of this self generated tunnel-vision, in addition to applying their ‘logic’ to existing users, harm reductionists demand that drug education of current non-users should be confined - not to preventing their use of drugs - but instead to:
i) reducing the harm which their ‘assumed to be inevitable drug use’ will create,
ii) informing ‘theoretical’ future drug users about the various choices they can have,
iii) educating ‘supposedly’ potential drug users in responsible use, and,
iv) educating them in ‘safe’ drug use – even though this is clearly a contradiction in terms.
Also included in the concept of ‘harm reduction’ is the foundation underlying these four cornerstones. This falsely holds that because the government has ruled that drug usage is illegal, the politicians have increased the harm to the user by ‘making’ him or her a criminal, and that the burden of this ‘additional harm’ should be lifted from the addict’s already overloaded shoulders by making the use of all drugs “legal”.
The combination of these four cornerstones on that foundation add up to only one thing - a camouflaged covert campaign for the legalisation in one way or another of all forms of drug use. Something which both government and public would not wish to see being done in their name, but in most cases, they are not even aware that it is happening.
In other words, demands for ‘harm reduction’, ‘informed choice’, ‘responsible drug use’ and ‘safe drug use’ are all part of the world-wide propaganda for legalisation.
So, to detect the source of this propaganda we must inevitably ask: “who or what would want to promote legalisation”? And to answer that question, we have only to examine: “who or what will make the most money from the legalisation of all drugs”?
There are presently 3 main producers and / or sellers of
drugs in the
1) The ones most in the headlines are the various
international ‘drug barons’ who pump cannabis, cocaine, crack and heroin, etc,
into our market. 2) Then there are the attic loft growers of cannabis, plus the
At first sight they appear as three quite separate groups, often in competition, but they are in fact associated either directly or indirectly with each other’s businesses.
It was of course the pharmaceutical industry which developed morphine to ‘treat’ opium addiction. They then developed heroin to handle the morphine addiction problem they had created, followed by methadone and buprenorphine to ‘manage’ the heroin problem they had created, and now naltrexone to ‘help come off’ the methadone and buprenorphine addictions they have also created.
In fact, the majority, if not all, of today’s so-called ‘street drugs’ were developed in the laboratories of the ‘ethical’ pharmaceutical drug companies, including: amphetamines, anabolic steroids, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, buprenorphine, cocaine, heroin, methadone, morphine, Prozac (fluoxetine) and Ritalin (methylphenidate), etc.
Arising out of their internationally strong position, their partnership with U.K. psychiatry and the huge P.R. lobby which, over the last half century, the psycho-pharmaceutical industries have together developed to influence medical and political decision-makers, in the U.K. we now have a so-called ‘drug treatment’ and school prescription system which is nothing more than a licence for the pharmaceutical industry to supply hard drugs to addicts and children and to receive guaranteed payment (and profit) from the U.K. taxpayer via our NHS, the DoH and the DfES.
No cure or treatment of drug addiction is attempted or even contemplated for any drug except heroin - the twin treatments offered being methadone maintenance and some psychiatric led counselling of extremely doubtful achievement – if any.
The proof of
this is the increasing number of drug addicts every year. But for centuries
the British public and their governmental representatives have believed that
the end product of any real ‘treatment’ is ‘a cure’. However, freely
available government statistics prove that, even though cures are daily
available in other countries no cure is being delivered by
With
psycho-pharmaceutical ‘treatment’ in the government policy driving seat, it is
not surprising that those industries quietly welcome new heroin addicts created
by drug Mafia activities. They know that within 3 years a new heroin
addict is more than likely to enrol in their methadone maintenance programme,
so that the heroin drug smugglers and pushers are ultimately acting as
recruiters for lifelong methadone addiction, paid for by
This is of course legalisation through prescription.
We should also ask ourselves: “from where and from whom do illegal basement laboratory manufacturers of LSD, ecstasy, amphetamines and other drugs get their raw materials?”
Yes. You’ve guessed it - also from the pharmaceutical / chemical industry. Bulk packaged supplies destined for agricultural and veterinary usage and for industrial processes find there way - with surprising ease - to the criminals producing illicit drugs for human consumption. Of course, such supplies of dangerous chemicals are supposed to be policed by the pharmaceutical suppliers, but . . . . well their lack of success or serious enough concern in this regard seems to speak for itself.
This is not to say that that industry is deliberately developing supply lines to such illegal producers, but it does suggest that, as long as the pharmaceutical companies get paid for their production – even though it might be from their own or their legitimate customer’s insurance company – they have little interest in such so-called “inevitable leakage” of their “legitimate” substances onto criminal drug manufacturer’s production lines.
There is of course also an expanding profitable sale of bulk supplies of Prozac, Ritalin and other prescription drugs to our children on an enforced prescription basis - via the “school psychiatrist.” And also an expanding and profitable sale and distribution of pharmaceutical products over the internet. A natural development of e-commerce some might say. But when anyone – including your son or daughter - can order quantities of ‘prescription’ drugs without ever being seen by a doctor competent to issue them a prescription, the whole fabric of the vital protection which personal medical examination and prescribing is supposed to provide is damagingly torn asunder.
Bear in mind also that these un-prescribed ‘prescription’ supplies are not illegally produced drugs, but are standard pharmaceutical industry generic or branded products. If they were stolen or illegally produced, that industry and the police would quickly move against the distributors. But they don’t, which tells us that they must be legitimate supplies about which the manufacturers know, but to which they prefer to turn a blind eye because they bring in more and more turnover and more profit.
So what has all this to do with the ‘harm reduction’ concepts being pushed on our children as ‘drugs education’?
There is justification for seeking to reduce the harm done by drugs to an individual who is already an addict. The ‘harm’ is already there, it is apparent and if it can be reduced then it should be.
But what possible reason can exist for telling a non using 6 to 16 year old child how to reduce the harm of drug-taking, when there are in fact huge and disastrous disadvantages in such so-called ‘drugs education’ – or more accurately – ‘education in drug use’ !
Non-using children who have received such ‘drug education’ reveal that the message they get is that “drug using need not be particularly harmful if you use clean needles and if you also make sure that the supply of heroin you are injecting is ‘pure’.” !
Educating non-using children in ‘informed choice’ concepts, gives them the idea that they are free to choose, and that there is apparently a drug or drugs that would be just the right choice for them, as long as they are ‘well-informed’ about drugs.
Telling non-using children about ‘responsible drug use’ gives them the belief that using drugs is perfectly OK if they do so responsibly, and that ‘safe drug use’ teaches them how to use drugs safely! One child expressed this as: “Like its dangerous to pick up a poisonous snake, but if you wear gloves, its OK” !
Clearly the justification for telling a none drug using 6 to 16 year old child how to reduce the harm of drug taking is NOT TO PREVENT THEM FROM USING DRUGS. All four of these allied ‘harm reductionist’ concepts are clearly low-profile education on “how to USE drugs” rather than on the life-saving “why one should NOT use drugs”.
And in fact the real justification for giving our children “harm reduction” based ‘drugs education’ is in order to make it seem OK for drugs to be used and for drugs to eventually be legalised in one way or another.
And think . . . . WHO is it who will be producing, supplying and profiting from supplying increasing amounts of cannabis, heroin, cocaine and crack if they go on legal sale alongside methadone, the benzodiazepines and other addictive prescription drugs, etc? It certainly won’t be the greengrocers, Starbucks or any other coffee shops! It will of course be the ‘psycho-pharmaceutical fraternity’ (and did someone say: “George Soros” ?)
One has only to look at the plethora of new legislation coming out of Brussels and to count the gigantic number of pharmaceutical industry lobbyists being paid to daily influence EU and U.K. officials and MPs, to know who or what is the true driving force behind the demand in the U.K. for controlled legalisation. (i.e. legalised supply under the control of the psycho-pharma fraternity – mainly via prescription.)
The way to combat this is for parents to campaign at local level, in their children’s own schools and with their local education authorities, their local councillors and local MPs, for real drug ‘PREVENTION TRAINING’. There’s lots of it available, and it IS extremely effective. Which is why it is being kicked into touch by the wealthy and powerful ‘legalisers’ and their influential P.R. agencies lobbyists. But remember, their version of ‘drugs education’ doesn’t stop new drug users from starting – because it is not intended to. They then pretend that drugs education doesn’t work, in order to keep real prevention training out of our schools.
The psycho-pharmaceutical industry wants a population of drug users legally and exclusively supplied with their addictive substances by their industry at taxpayer cost. It has long been said that ‘an addict is a goose which lays golden eggs for the industry which supplies the drugs’. They don’t want addicts cured, they want as many addicts as possible, and they want the public purse to pay – SIMPLY BECAUSE THOSE ADDICTS CAN’T !
So true harm reduction therefore lies i) in getting rid of drugs education which is not prevention training, ii) in getting rid of so-called ‘treatment’ systems which do not cure, and iii) in recognising that to achieve i) and ii) government must change the present culture which permits psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical companies to dominate so many aspects of policy-making and political advice by pretending they are the experts in the drug addiction field.
However, their only true expertise is in hoodwinking politicians, civil servants and the media into permitting and supporting their control of those lucrative drugs marketplaces known as the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Skills. Those Departments are not the consumers, but they are the ‘clients’ who make the buying decisions and who pay the bills out of taxpayer funds. But don’t blame the government. They have been ‘sold to’ by the world’s experts.
For further information and to offer or receive help, please phone CEPTA, the
Campaign for Effective Prevention & Treatment of Addiction, on (01342) 811099.
© 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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