Drug addicts.
When I first joined the DWP, I was amazed to discover that drug addicts and alcoholics were treated as though they were ill, and paid Income Support accordingly. I had the vague idea that these conditions were self-inflicted, but obviously I was wrong. I'll admit straight away that I don't drink, never have and never will, because I just don't like alcohol. (Yes, I am actually English, hard to believe though that may be). To me, alcohol tastes just like disinfectant smells. When I was young, I'd sit in the pub pretending to enjoy gin and orange, or vodka and lime, but now I don't pretend any more, and I'd much prefer a nice cup of tea. As for drugs, I was a teenager in the seventies, but we tended not to get many illegal substances at the church youth club. So, it's hard for me to understand why people become alcoholics or drug addicts, and even harder to understand why the tax payer has to fork out to support them. Perhaps I'm unreasonably harsh, I don't know.
Not far from the job centre is a chemist with a 'clean needle exchange.' Addicts can go there, receive fresh needles and inject their drug in a little room at the back. Here also, addicts who are trying to come off heroin with a 'methadone script', (a prescription of methadone, which is a substitute for heroin, from a doctor), get their legal methadone dose in a small glass, and have to swallow it in front of the pharmacist, in case they sell it to buy heroin. (Sometimes they sell it after they've swallowed it, and then it's called 'spit meths.' Think about it, or maybe you prefer not to. Very wise.) I do realise that HIV and other unpleasant conditions are spread by addicts sharing needles, so I suppose places like that are a good thing. Would it be a good thing to legalise drugs altogether? I'm not sure about that. Since at least half the crime in Britain is drug-related, and ensuring a clean, legal supply of drugs would put a stop to a great deal of this, it might be a good idea. However, the poor old tax payer would have to pay up yet again.
Drug addicts who come into the job centre are, frankly, frightening. It is mostly they who 'kick off,' that is shout, scream, and sometimes even try to attack us, or do actually attack us, when they have not received their money, usually because they have not complied with a condition of their benefit. Nearly everyone else can be reasoned with, but not junkies. It's as if the desire for the drug takes them over to such an extent that there's no human being left.
But then, if they were not on benefits, what would happen to them? They often come to us as a last resort, after having lost their job, (if they ever had one) their home, (not so much through not paying rent, because there is housing benefit, but residents are sometimes evicted from public housing if their home becomes known as a drug den) and often, if female, their children, who have been taken into care by Social Services. I remember talking to a 28 year old man who had never had a job since he left school at 16, because he'd been on drugs all that time. He'd made several attempts to come off them, and failed each time. Moving from Glasgow to London to try yet again, he'd fallen into conversation with someone at King's Cross station, and Bob's your uncle. I asked him 'Why do you keep doing this to yourself?' and the answer I got was: 'Why not?'
Should they be put forcibly into detox as a condition of receiving benefit? While I consider that idea to have some merit, there are those who say that detox will not work unless the person really wants to come off their drug. (I can't see why they wouldn't to come off, actually). But supposing that to be true, all we are doing is just paying them to be junkies. As for those prisoners who recently won compensation for being being taken forcibly off their drug when sent to prison, (going to prison is an entirely voluntary act, by the way), all I can say is 'What are we like?)
I used to have a friend who worked in a detox unit, and got myself invited to a meeting there, on the grounds that it would help me in my dealings with addicts at work. (I actually just wanted to see what went on there). At the meeting, a young woman told us that she had been a prostitute to fund her habit. She said that it was either that, or stealing to pay for her drug, and went on to state how hard it was giving up, and that the best solution to drug addiction would be somewhere people could go to obtain a free, safe supply, and help to come off 'when they were quite ready to do so.' Unable to keep quiet, I said that an even better solution would be not to start taking drugs in the first place, and that's why my friend is no longer my friend. She said that people take drugs to blot out the pain of their unbearable lives, to forget problems such as homelessness. I said that when I was homeless I didn't start taking drugs, on the grounds that I had enough problems already without that, and she's never spoken to me again.
Not far from the job centre is a chemist with a 'clean needle exchange.' Addicts can go there, receive fresh needles and inject their drug in a little room at the back. Here also, addicts who are trying to come off heroin with a 'methadone script', (a prescription of methadone, which is a substitute for heroin, from a doctor), get their legal methadone dose in a small glass, and have to swallow it in front of the pharmacist, in case they sell it to buy heroin. (Sometimes they sell it after they've swallowed it, and then it's called 'spit meths.' Think about it, or maybe you prefer not to. Very wise.) I do realise that HIV and other unpleasant conditions are spread by addicts sharing needles, so I suppose places like that are a good thing. Would it be a good thing to legalise drugs altogether? I'm not sure about that. Since at least half the crime in Britain is drug-related, and ensuring a clean, legal supply of drugs would put a stop to a great deal of this, it might be a good idea. However, the poor old tax payer would have to pay up yet again.
Drug addicts who come into the job centre are, frankly, frightening. It is mostly they who 'kick off,' that is shout, scream, and sometimes even try to attack us, or do actually attack us, when they have not received their money, usually because they have not complied with a condition of their benefit. Nearly everyone else can be reasoned with, but not junkies. It's as if the desire for the drug takes them over to such an extent that there's no human being left.
But then, if they were not on benefits, what would happen to them? They often come to us as a last resort, after having lost their job, (if they ever had one) their home, (not so much through not paying rent, because there is housing benefit, but residents are sometimes evicted from public housing if their home becomes known as a drug den) and often, if female, their children, who have been taken into care by Social Services. I remember talking to a 28 year old man who had never had a job since he left school at 16, because he'd been on drugs all that time. He'd made several attempts to come off them, and failed each time. Moving from Glasgow to London to try yet again, he'd fallen into conversation with someone at King's Cross station, and Bob's your uncle. I asked him 'Why do you keep doing this to yourself?' and the answer I got was: 'Why not?'
Should they be put forcibly into detox as a condition of receiving benefit? While I consider that idea to have some merit, there are those who say that detox will not work unless the person really wants to come off their drug. (I can't see why they wouldn't to come off, actually). But supposing that to be true, all we are doing is just paying them to be junkies. As for those prisoners who recently won compensation for being being taken forcibly off their drug when sent to prison, (going to prison is an entirely voluntary act, by the way), all I can say is 'What are we like?)
I used to have a friend who worked in a detox unit, and got myself invited to a meeting there, on the grounds that it would help me in my dealings with addicts at work. (I actually just wanted to see what went on there). At the meeting, a young woman told us that she had been a prostitute to fund her habit. She said that it was either that, or stealing to pay for her drug, and went on to state how hard it was giving up, and that the best solution to drug addiction would be somewhere people could go to obtain a free, safe supply, and help to come off 'when they were quite ready to do so.' Unable to keep quiet, I said that an even better solution would be not to start taking drugs in the first place, and that's why my friend is no longer my friend. She said that people take drugs to blot out the pain of their unbearable lives, to forget problems such as homelessness. I said that when I was homeless I didn't start taking drugs, on the grounds that I had enough problems already without that, and she's never spoken to me again.
posted by annette wilson @ 7:26 AM
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