DHA launch address – Martin Blakebrough (Kaleidoscope)

Kaleidoscope welcomes DHA

I stand before you feeling that I am a guilty man. For not only do I run a drugs project in the present criminal justice climate for treating drug users but am on the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs which of course advises the Home Office on drugs policy.

My defence - well the Advisory Council can only advise on what we are given permission to advise on. In terms of Kaleidoscope, founded in 1968, we continue to be an independently minded voluntary sector agency with a passion for the drug users who support us by coming to our services. I guess our size for such a long established service (small) is testimony to our inability to play the political game.

The Kaleidoscope has a history of welcoming drug users to its service. In Kingston, our birthplace, we have provided rapid prescribing and needle syringe exchange. The services are located in a club/coffee bar environment so one does not have the sense of a cold waiting room. We believe that the greatest support a drug user can have is from fellow drug users so we try and support the drug using community which is often fractured by the criminalisation of their drug use. In many ways we see the value of 12 step projects where people get support from fellow recovering drug users and apply the same principle of peer support to existing drug users.

Sadly services like Kaleidoscope in Kingston are under threat from supporting people in this way. Firstly there is no funding for such supportive work and secondly we are finding that wherever our clients try and meet each other they are subjected to community intolerance. If for example you sat with our drug users outside Kaleidoscope you would hear the barrage of insults drivers give to drug users who are quietly talking to each other. No driver has ever been arrested for abusive behaviour. What Kingston does is create no go areas for drug users and the latest idea is to place dispersal orders outside Kaleidoscope and its environs to force drug users apart. There are of course places where this may be appropriate but there are no resources to provide a centre where drug users are allowed to frequent.

In Kingston we tried to navigate policy that would lead to an anti discrimination law which protects drug users in terms of abuse, prejudicial treatment when accessing services such as housing and employment but this was not passed through the council.

In Wales Kaleidoscope was invited to provide services in 2002 to up to 100 people ensuring that all those who wanted treatment would get it. Our services within 1 year had attracted 500 people. The problem with our success was that although in that year drug related crime had fallen by 40% no one was going through the criminal justice system. As a consequence our funding was kept at the same level but we were forced to reduce our numbers so that the Drug Intervention Programme figures would look better. Kaleidoscope has noted that across the country there has been a drive to treat people through the criminal justice system and to keep at a minimum places for people simply seeking help.

Treatment is primarily becoming driven by non health targets such as reducing crime and retaining clients with criminal justice issues. Methadone treatment is not seen as an integrated package of rehabilitative care but simply as a tool to ensure people keep to their orders. In the same way when we look at needle syringe exchange there has been a virtual collapse in the services emphasising the health risks associated with injecting use and an encouragement to get into treatment. The pharmacy led services have allowed a greater access to clean needles but have been at a cost of losing the public health issues.

The greatest failure of government in this debate is to forget that treatment is more than reducing crime. We have seen a dramatic cut in therapeutic rehabilitation services, which is best symbolised with the closure of Cranstoun House in Esher. We have seen a reduction in South West London and Gwent in the provision of detoxification beds for clients. We have seen that the agenda for helping drug users make meaningful changes in their lives reduced to little more than stabilising a person and hoping that in their drug induced state they will no longer commit acts of anti social behaviour.

The government seems almost content to explain crime in the UK as a consequence of drug use in the UK where the reality is that drugs are a symptom of profound disillusionment. The reality of the situation is that if you vaccinated the population against cocaine people would turn in greater numbers to methamphetamine and if you eradicated heroin they would turn to equally damaging pharmaceutical drugs because they are deeply unhappy with what life has to offer them. To combat drug misuse we have to address deep rooted social issues and to provide services that support a person's sense of upset so they can move on in their lives.

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