The misuse of drugs act – a user perspective

Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate the ways in which the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) militates against the interests and situations of people who use drugs. The author reflects on the author’s journey as a drug user, drugs workers and drug user organiser to critique the MDA. The author describes the impact of the MDA on the author’s early experimentation with substances and highlights the limitations of simplistic drugs prevention. The author describes how the MDA maximises drug-related risks and undermines the creation of healthy cultural norms and community learning among people who use drugs. The author talks about the author’s work as a drugs practitioner and mourns the vandalism of the UK’s harm reduction and drug treatment system. This paper describes the opportunity to use drug policy reform as a progressive electoral agenda to begin the journey towards racial and social justice. This paper calls for the rejection of the Big Drugs Lie and the repeal of the failed MDA. Design/methodology/approach Personal reflection based on experience as drug user, drugs worker and drug user organiser. Findings Successive UK Governments have used the MDA as a tool of social control and racial discrimination. The Big Drugs Lie undermines science-based and rights-compliant drug policy and drug services and criminalises and puts young people at risk. There is the potential to build a progressive political alliance to remove the impediment of the MDA and use drug policy reform as tools for racial and social justice. Practical implications The MDA maximises the harms faced by people who use drugs, stokes stigma and discrimination and has undermined the quality of drug services. The MDA needs to be exposed and challenged as a tool for social control and racial discrimination. Delivering drug policy reform as a progressive electoral strategy could maximise its potential to improve social and racial justice. Originality/value This paper represents the view of people who use drugs by a drug user, a view which is seldom expressed in the length and level of argument shown here.

Individual Characteristics And The Gateway Hypothesis Among Drug User Patient In Indonesia

Drug abuse has become severe not just in the world but also in Indonesia. To address this problem, public policies and researcher try to understand the drug use pattern. One of the famous concept in drug use pattern is gatheway hypothesis. The gateway hypothesis refers to the pattern of substance use initiate softer drug lead to the harder drug. However, many literature shows drug use pattern is not just gateway pattern, there is reversal pattern and using both gateway and reversal pattern. Many studies have discussed the relationship between drug use and individual characteristics. However, few of them are relatively link between individual characteristics and the sequential order in drug use. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how individual characteristics are associated with the gateway pattern and other pattern for different types of drugs. We use a secondary dataset of individual drug user patients from the Rehabilitation Center of National Narcotics Board aged 14–67 years assessed using the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), employing probit and multinominal logit model. Duration are associated with initial soft drug user with gateway pattern. While alcohol use and have high education level related with initial hard drug user with reversal pattern. Interestingly, duration and alcohol use correlated with initial intermediate drug user with all kind of pattern. Prevention and intervention efforts should be targeting high-risk characteristics of people at an initial stage of drug use and progression to the next stage.

Oral health care for a young drug user

Objetivo: desenhar os cuidados com a saúde bucal de um jovem usuário de drogas, acerca da autoimagem em virtude do método terapêutico aplicado no atendimento odontológico, realizado na Clínica Escola de uma Faculdade Privada em uma cidade de médio porte do interior do Estado de Minas Gerais, Brasil. Materiais e Métodos: trata-se de uma pesquisa intervenção de observação participante de natureza qualitativa do tipo estudo de caso, que fez uso do método intervencionista, sendo realizada em uma Clínica Escola de Odontologia de uma Faculdade Privada. O caso foi selecionado de modo intencional a partir do atendimento da Clínica de Triagem e o direcionamento para o atendimento da Clínica Integrada, devido à complexidade da condição de saúde bucal em decorrência do uso de drogas. O estudo foi submetido para apreciação Ética através do CAEE: 40362620.2.0000.8078. Trata-se de um paciente com idade de 19 anos aqui denominado como T, de classe social baixa, ensino médio incompleto, exercendo atividade laboral como barbeiro, residente com os pais em um bairro periférico da cidade. Como instrumento de coleta de dados utilizou do registro de fotográfico, prontuário, diário de campo e entrevista episódica. Para as análises de dados foram utilizados métodos de abordagem qualitativa. Considerações: pode-se considerar positivamente que a evolução do plano de tratamento estabelecido transcorreu positivamente a favor da intervenção terapêutica estabelecida em decorrência do comportamento apresentado pelo paciente, demonstrando assim, a satisfação do paciente com os resultados no âmbito da condição da saúde bucal, bem como, a estética e a autoestima.