BS: vouchers for addicts!

Subject: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: skipy
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 05:28 PM

Drug addicts receiving treatment should be given shopping vouchers to encourage them to kick their habit, an NHS body has suggested.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence accepts the idea for England and Wales is controversial.

But evidence from international trials shows modest financial incentives can cut drug abuse by hardened addicts.

Users could get vouchers worth up to £10 at NHS treatment programmes - if tests show they are free of drugs.
.....................................................................


controversial!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:57 PM

If it worked, a real bargain.

It'd be best, of course, if it was combined with a reversion to the old system (in Britain) under which addicts could get their drugs on prescription. Then it'd be "do you want the drugs or the shopping vouchers", and you'd hope they'd go for the latter.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: skipy
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 06:59 PM

Stop pampering to them, take them out.
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 07:12 PM

Taking them out would work out much more expensive, if you had to pay for the meal or the drinks.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: skipy
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 08:10 PM

McG
you know that I am not talking about "taking them out for a meal"!Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: mack/misophist
Date: 26 Jan 07 - 11:53 PM

One of the interesting things about heroine is that it doesn't destroy the brain the way speed does. William Burroughs was a registered addict for many years yet managed to turn out a respectable body of work. Some of his stuff, The Black Rider for example, I'd hate to have to do without. Of course it always helps to have a trust fund.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: the fence
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 02:22 AM

What about food vouchers for the homeless???

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 06:01 AM

£10 don't make me laugh, that's peanuts to people with a habit as expensive as heroin.
G.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 10:10 AM

It does seem optimistic. Still, if "evidence from international trials shows modest financial incentives can cut drug abuse by hardened addicts" it sounds as if it might help.

I can't see why there should be anything the least controversial about the suggestion.
................
"Take them out" - the same misunderstanding was the basis of a film with Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall, "Mr Jolly Lives Next Door", where the two protagonists get given a contract expressed in these terms to "take out" TV Presenter Nicholas Parsons, and they all have a pleasant night out on the town.

I think most of us have taken out people in that sense far more often than in any other way.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 11:47 AM

It's possible that vouchers would just get passed on. I'm in favour of prescribed heroin - this would save a lot of money on other treatments that often don't work and would also cut crime.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 11:58 AM

Since they'd only be issued to customers checked as being drug free by the clinic, it wouldn't really matter what they did with the vouchers, used them, sold them, gave them away, or stuck them on the wall as souvenirs.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 12:13 PM

Its possible to be drug free one day but not the next - I'm not convinced they are the answer but anything is worth a go.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Raedwulf
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 12:41 PM

The present 'system' does not appear to be very cost-effective. By all means try shopping vouchers. Perhaps they'll work, I doubt it. But as one of a battery of properly funded measures, it will probably prove a very good incentive.

"Properly funded" is, of course, the stumbling block. It's easier, cheaper, & buys more votes if you hand the money to law enforcement. It's easier to quantify their effect.

It may well be more effective to A) educate people not to become addicts; to B) wean the addicts from their whole chemical/physical/psychological addiction. But it's cheaper & more visible to jail people, so that's what the politicians (Labour or Tory) will tend to do...

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 12:49 PM

......only if there are any places left! I do agree with you though.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Gizmo
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 05:31 PM

I disagree.

There are many ways of helping out drug addicts, unfortunately it requires money and effort and a change of laws in this country.

Giving them incentives does not help.

I personally have been the victim of crimes committed by drug addicts on no less than 5 times, and all them resulting in threats to my life, in some way or another.

If they think this scheme will work, they are surely misguided, and not quite living in the real world, of which some people are forced to live in.

In my borough, they house known alcoholics and drug addicts next to law abiding damilies with youngsters, and then they don't help the victims when the neighbours want money for drugs. No, they help the poor little druggies instead, while giving nothing for the victims.
It's disgusting, and none of this addresses the real issues.

The addicts would be better off with psychotherapy sessions than with vouchers.

Don't get me wrong, I think more should be done for addicts, but thought has to go out to victims, relatives and friends of the addicts too. Buying them off with vouchers would achieve nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 05:39 PM

That's why I am in favour of prescribed heroin.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: bubblyrat
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 05:50 PM

If you are addicted to Nicotine, you don"t want a shopping-voucher,you want a cigarette.
If you are an alcoholic,you don"t want a shopping-voucher,you want a large Scotch.
If you are addicted to heroin,crack,crystal meth or whatever,you don"t want a shopping voucher,you want a FIX .
I think that the people that dreamed up this half-baked idea should be forcibly made to become addicted to cut heroin & alcohol, and then offered a shopping voucher.
I have had first - hand experience of recovering from two of the above "vices ", one of which involved hospitalisation, and I can assure you,the LAST thing I wanted was a F>>>>>SHOPPING VOUCHER !!!

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 06:04 PM

I like it.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 07:30 PM

The point is, it'd be for people who'd actually managed to beat the addiction, at least for the time being. A pat on the back, rather than a bribe.

Doesn't sound too likely to work, but if the evidence says it does, for some people anyway, it's worth trying. The punitive approach clearly doesn't work.

But then, looking at it sceptically, the punitive approach only fails as a way of combatting drug use, and that's not really what it's about. Without continuing drug abuse, what would become of the regulatory industry that has grown up around this whole problem?

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: mg
Date: 27 Jan 07 - 07:59 PM

I would like to see something where addicts get hospice care in a secure facility where they can not hurt or even scare anyone, where no money changes hands except a pittance for a Hershey bar now and then, and where they get some legal drugs, perhaps morphine. Nothing that makes them violent. Have nurses etc. on staff and lots of security. Have a locked section and ways to get out by being clean etc. and have an unlocked section for people who test clean. They could shuffle back and forth depending on their needs. Have a nice place for family and conjugal visits. Treat them decently, feed them well, give them certain drugs, as many as they insist on, have counselors, and keep them away from everyone else except those who voluntarily come to help them or their families. No social security money, no public housing and no medical care (no heroic measures at all) other than good quality medical care available in these facilities. Make it a paradise on earth with lots of cable TV and pool tables and healthy food and hopefully gardens where they could grow stuff and make ways for them go get clean off drugs if they could. If they couldn't, they could still have a pleasant quality of life (heck, I would go there) and not have to commit crimes to get certain drugs and hospice care as they died. Oh they could have vouchers to get a new CD or book now and then too. Crime would go down, the unpleasantness of living in a poor neighborhood would go down, public sanitation problems and public health problems would go down. Children with parents who were addicts would not have to live with them but could visit them as often as could be arranged in a supervised situation with counselors to explain things to them. Parents would know their son or daughter was at least clean and comfortable and not going to die of murder or freeze to death or walk in front of a truck and as they deteriorated, if indeed they did, they would have a decent place to visit with them as they died. Many would break free of addiction if they had a basic place to live and many would not. mg

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: bubblyrat
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 08:57 AM

Dear mg ( that stands for milligram,doesn"t it? How apt !!) But I DO agree with you !!Most of what you say is pure common sense,although I don"t agree with the cable TV idea----there are too many subliminal influences at work for it to be good for addicts in recovery !! Plus some people who are a bit far gone can suffer fits from watching TV.
Giving drugs freely to addicts is ---well, controversial ! In England ,as far as I know,they still give Methadone to Heroin addicts.This is odd,because (or so I was told by a medical expert ) Methadone is actually MORE addictive than Heroin,which,in its pure,uncut,form,is not actually addictive !! But ,Hey !! that"s the British Government for you !! They know better than any doctor !!!

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 09:01 AM

They do still give methadone and it takes longer to come off than heroin; it also rots the teeth.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 09:21 AM

Also methadone doesn't seem to work any better than I imagine a shopping voucher would.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 11:49 AM

I think Methadone is supplied, even though it is less effective and more dabgerous,essentially for public realtions reasons. It avoids the kind of hysteria that heroin generatesd in the media - and no doubt if they reverted to supplying heroin to addicts that would involve problems from acrossm the Atlantic, and we can't have that.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Gizmo
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 04:45 PM

Most addicts actually sell their prescribed methodone to those who want it, then go out and buy heroin.

I agree with mg's post whole heartedly, and think that is the only way forward.

They have clinics just like that for those with eating disorders over here in th UK (not for obesity, just anorexia nervosa and bulimia). The patients are only allowed to leave when they have fully recovered. They get councilling and help and constant supervision.

If many addicts were sent to these linics, the prison spaces would be free for more hardened criminals to do their time. The drugs which can be smuggled into the prisons are phenomenal.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 04:56 PM

I'm sure the money that would be invested in a shopping voucher scheme would be better used to provide more places for rehabilitation - at the moment rehabilitation places are very hard to get. Recovering from drug addiction is a long process.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 05:56 PM

Most addicts actually sell their prescribed methodone to those who want it, then go out and buy heroin.

In the absence of some evidence for an assertion like that ("most") it's best to treat it as rubbish.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:08 PM

In conversation with a doctor who specialises in drug abuse problems, I was shocked to hear the figures.

He has treated over 500 addicts on the methadone programme.
Of that 500, many are dead and only 12 are now off heroin and methadone.

"The methadone programme is not designed to cure addicts, but to control" them. When given the herion substitute methadone the addicts are no longer obliged to commit crime to obtain their daily supply, which in severe cases can cost £200 per day.

The authorites are more concerned with cutting the crime figures than saving the lives of addicts. Methadone is indeed more addictive than heroin and causes many more health problems.

Personally, I know several addicts who have used diamorphine for many years and are in good heath some are mid sixties, one over seventy years of age.

IMO the drug plague is a symptom of psychiatric problems which stem from a sick society in terminal decline....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 07:29 PM

Methadone is indeed pretty scary stuff - we lost a very good GP because a patient to whom he was prescribing it overdosed and died. It wasn't really the doctor's fault at all, but he still got scapegoated for it.

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 03:34 AM

You have to live with heroin addiction (and the methadone addiction) to get the full flavour. Then you work down the list: methadone, detox, naltrexone, subbutex, DDTOs, prison, counselling, (shopping vouchers!). The vouchers apparently will be given to users when they are drug free. Naltrexone is given when drug free and people still relapse. This brings me back to 2 options: prescribed heroin or long term rehabilitation; give the vouchers to the families to give them the incentive to keep going!

Subject: RE: BS: vouchers for addicts!
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 08:05 AM

Sorry - I meant DTTOs not DDTOs!