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The Incredible Story behind ‘The Frozen Addicts’

English: MPPP; 1-methyl-4-phenyl-4-propionoxyp...

MPPP; 1-methyl-4-phenyl-4-propionoxypiperidine, desmethylprodine Deutsch: 1-Methyl-4-phenyl-4-propion-oxy-piperidin; 3-Desmethylprodin or synthetic heroin -however one mistake in the lab and it becomes an injectable nightmare.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A nightmare of immense proportions for any opiate user watching this film. Watch the simply mindblowing film about a handful of opiate users in California in the early 1980′s who, after injecting what they thought was heroin, woke up completely frozen – in body and voice – but not mind. Locked into a prison of their own bodies, their stories confounded doctors until bit by bit they managed to unravel what had happened to them and so began the long, long road as they endeavored to cure them of their condition, despite at times creating other situations that were as bad if not worse than the original Parkinson-like condition they initially faced.

Crucially, I think it is worth mentioning that the underground chemist who was trying to manufactuer a synthetic form of heroin known as MPPP, rushed the process and came up with something called MPTP, a drug that destroyed peoples dopamine receptors, leaving them unable to produce dopamine and thus leaving them frozen in their bodies. See text below the video for link to information on MPTP and MPPP. This is yet another byproduct of prohibition, where the law allows underground labs to flourish and horrendous mistakes like this to occur. This is not to say mistakes don’t occur in big pharma although in general, research techniques ensure such enormous problems are found before such drugs find their way to market. You can also follow up the stories of these amazing individuals whom our hearts go out to, on google etc.

<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/RyXXRG_UqBM&#8221; frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

NOTE on MPPP and MTPT: While MPTP itself has no psychoactive effects, the compound may be accidentally produced during the manufacture ofMPPP, a synthetic opioid drug with effects similar to those of morphine and pethidine (meperidine). The Parkinson-inducing effects of MPTP were first discovered following accidental ingestion as a result of contaminated MPPP. For more info on MPTP and MPPP, click here.

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by Erin on May 12, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in drugs, Health, History, interesting articles, people, Research, video, warnings/alerts
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Posted by Erin on May 12, 2013

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/the-incredible-story-behind-the-frozen-addicts/

RECOVERING FROM RECOVERY RANT

…Help, someone, anyone, gimme something to get that taste out of my mouth!

I’ve just been mooching around the British recovery policy arrow . That all want us to RECOVER. They all want us to hurry along off that awful substitute drug methadone or whatever dulls your senses, and step into real life, the good life, the real shiny happy coloured world.

I’m seeing David Cameron, sitting there in his living room, talking intensly about ‘how to deal with this country’s drug problem’ about how Labour just left us all sitting on methadone by a policy drafted and financially driven ‘bums on clinic seats’ kinda approach (amongst other things).

In a way, it worked. EVERYONE got a ‘script. EVERYONE who went near heroin got a methadone or Suboxone (in fashion pharmaceutically with the Gov these days) prescription and got off the crazy merry go round of hunting for dope 24-7.

But I could go on and on about what I thought of the last governments policies and where we went wrong and right – and we definitely did – for the first time ever – make some right decisions with the drug users welfare in mind -and occasionally involved in that as well! Movement!

But my RANT for today……

I am soooooo sick of the way we are supposed to go to ‘health professionals’ for ‘recovery’. More money thrown at them (for us you understand).

They pull out their research statistics -most of which are dubious (we could tell you that if we were ar these meetings or were there designing the research with you).

RECOVERY has become religious. Like a light we have to follow to ‘come and accept the truth and waljk through the recovery door into the light…..’

STOP! WE are making a mistake! support us if you must -but support us to be a community – to support each other, to decide for ourselves what kinda warm and fuzzy workshops we want to attend on the way to our new life….I mean please! We are all individuals. WE need what everyone needs to make it;

We need a purpose.

We need love and support

We need community, family, bridges healed, bridges left behind.

We need to be able to deal with anxiety, pressure, deadlines, responsibility without always using drugs. Sometimes it might be appropriate but we need to know when that is and when that isnt. A joint in bed after a mental nites work -what the fuck is wrong with that?

We need to feel like we are contributing to something useful, that we are giving something useful to our community. We need to focus on these things – not be held up like a ‘recovery champion’.

Its embarrassing, its patronising, it is demeaning; it makes the service feel good. Especcially when they have their big ‘event day’.

‘Here we are, look commissioner, look at our guy/girl -and hear their story of where they have come from (the gutter of course) to how, with the help of their drug service, they are a new person, they have their lives back and even their children. We all well up, stuff a chip in our mouths, drink the free wine (oops, no alcohol at these kind of events), network, and everyone feels good and wants to know how they too can replicate this service.

Why dont we ever learn? Why dont we acknowledge those who really need some serious support, practical and emotional and help them to help themselves. Support them to support each other. Peer support works well — but not run like a church with a bloody door and light at the end of the tunnel and youve never really made until you get there. drug free.

Im so sick of it all. And now london is haveing the biggest ‘RECOVERY EVENT’ in the world in January????!!! Please god!

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by Erin on November 16, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in drugs, Health, History, Human Rights Violations, peer work, people, Policy, Psychology, Treatment, Welfare

Posted by Erin on November 16, 2012

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/recovering-from-recovery-rant/

One of those videos you just gotta have a listen too…

This is another terrific Exchange Supplies production -a straight up talk from a wonderful woman called Magdalena Harris. Mags, a Kiwi now living in London talks straight to camera about her life as a committed career drug user and her journey telling how she managed to pull all her experiences together and marry up her knowledge of drugs with academia. A really empowering story, Mags eloquently and succinctly takes us through her life as a street drug user – New Zealand style -with all its pharmacological nuances, to treatment and methadone which left her even more despairing as she battled the punitive ‘clinic system’. Make no mistake, this is no self pity story. This is upfront and in your face -but more than that it is extremely perceptive and Mags is able to tell us just how valuable those years of using were to the work she does today.Many will empathise with her battle with hepatitis C and her dilemma over ‘to treat or not to treat’  – and at each turn of the story you will find something you can take from it to empower, inspire, laugh or get angry. For just 15 minutes, its well worth a look readers. Nice one Mags, thanks for being so honest but more than that even, thanks for the inspiration. And thanks to Exchange Supplies for bringing us another goodie! we love you guys!

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by Erin on July 16, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in drugs, Hepatitis C, peer work, people, video
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Posted by Erin on July 16, 2012

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/one-of-those-videos-you-just-gotta-have-a-listen-too/

Last Train to Woking

I just came across this story on an old blog of ours, written by BP Magazine’s co-founder Chris Drouet. Its hysterical, and a nod back to the old days of Diconal which were so popular in the UK during the 1980′s. Chris of course, overdosed in 2009, a huge loss -but it has made me start thinking about logging all the material from the back issues on this site, as there is some really classic stuff there. Anyway, over to Chris…

Train

Train Trip...

I had just picked up my script of Ritalin and physeptone amps and from somewhere I’d got five Diconal so I was looking forward to having a nice hit. I was standing on the platform on Waterloo Station looking up at the departure board for the next train to Woking in order to go and sign on for bail at the Police Station. There’s a train leaving in 15 minutes. Perfect! I can get on it and have a hit in the toilet before it leaves because I don’t really like trying to do it on a moving train. I go into the toilet and get my usual fix together, 5 Rit and 5 Diconal.

Just as the buzz is coming on me I hear a woman’s voice outside say, 

‘ Here, John, there’s someone in there having a fix. Get the guard’.

Then I hear someone, obviously John say, ‘Fuck the guard . I’ll get the police’.

Oh no. The police is the last thing I need, I was already on three lots of bail and another nicking I can do without.

A couple of minutes later the train starts moving out of the station. Relief sweeps over me. Plod couldn’t have had time to get on yet. Just then there’s a banging on the door and a voice saying,

‘Come on out Chris. We know it’s you in there and when you do come out, you’re nicked’.

Like fuck I am’. I reply, ‘I’m not coming out. If you wanna nick me you’re gonna have to come in here and do it. All you cunts can fuck off’.

A wave of panic engulfs me. I’ve got two 5ml works to get rid of plus the Rit blister packs. Then I hear plod say, ‘Can you turn the water off in there’?

They must be talking to the guard, I think. ‘Yes’, another voice retorts. I try the taps-nothing. There’s no water in the toilet bowl and there aren’t any windows to throw anything out of. What the fuck am I gonna do now? I really don’t wanna get nicked again. Not for something as trivial as this, anyway.

One of the cops says, ‘Can you undo the lock or get it off from out here’?

‘Yes.’ came the reply.

I look at the bolt and sure enough, it’s slowly being worked back so I jump to the door and slam the bolt back home. What am I gonna do? It’s only a matter of time till they come in. Suddenly, like a light being switched on, an idea comes to me. I pull the plungers out of both the syringes, pull off the little rubber things and swallow them and crush all the rest under the heel of my shoe. Thank God I wasn’t wearing trainers. I crush them till the plastic bits are reduced to tiny slivers.

Then I have to push the bolt home again and when I do I hear from outside,

‘You bastard, we’ll get you.’

‘No you fucking won’t, you cunts. Have it up a tree all of you, you fuckers.’

I lay down on the floor on my stomach in the piss and dirt and filth with my feet jammed against the door so they can’t get in and I poked all the little bits of plastic through the ventilation grill one by one as the holes were so small. Every so often I had to jump up and push the bolt back home again. each time I did the police outside gave me a volley of abuse which I answered in spades

‘Why don’t you cunts fuck off and leave me alone. Haven’t you got anything better to do. Why don’t you go and nick a few nonces instead of hassling me, you fucking wankers?’ Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off!!!

Screaming and shouting I was getting really worked up.

Eventually I managed to push everything, syringes, spikes and even the little bits of silver foil from the Ritalin through the ventilation grill so there was nothing in my possession to be nicked for and I began to relax a little.

I can still hear the police outside the door talking. I can’t hear what they’re saying as they’re now keeping their voices down. I try and clean myself up as best I can in the circumstances. I’ve still got to sign on for bail and I’ve got all these dirty pissy marks down the front of my shirt as a result of lying on the toilet floor and I look a mess. I stand with my back to the window facing the door waiting for the police to come in and arrest me.

Nothing.

The train starts slowing down as it’s pulling into Woking station. It stops and I don’t have any choice’ I’ve got to get off the train to go and sign on. I gather myself together the best I can knowing that they’re out there just waiting for me to get off the train. They know who I am and, I guess, where I’m going.

I open the door and walk out into the corridor and there was no-one there. Fuck! I’d imagined the bloody whole episode.
By C.D sadly missed.

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by Erin on April 6, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in BP Magazine articles, people, Remembrances
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Posted by Erin on April 6, 2012

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/last-train-to-woking/

The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States

The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States

A Look at the Racial Disparities Inherent in USA’s Criminal-Justice System

SOURCE: AP/ California Department of Corrections

Eliminating the racial disparities inherent to our nation’s criminal-justice policies and practices must be at the heart of a renewed, refocused, and reenergized movement for racial justice in America.

A harrowing article by the Centre for American Progress, written by  Sophia Kerby | March 13, 2012

This month the United States celebrates the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965 to commemorate our shared history of the civil rights movement and our nation’s continued progress towards racial equality. Yet decades later a broken criminal-justice system has proven that we still have a long way to go in achieving racial equality.

Today people of color continue to be disproportionately incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts. Further, racial disparities in the criminal-justice system threaten communities of color—disenfranchising thousands by limiting voting rights and denying equal access to employment, housing, public benefits, and education to millions more. In light of these disparities, it is imperative that criminal-justice reform evolves as the civil rights issue of the 21st century.

Below we outline the top 10 facts pertaining to the criminal-justice system’s impact on communities of color.

1. While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.

2. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, indicating that racial profiling continues to be a problem. A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white motorists. African Americans were twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police.

3. Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated. Black and Hispanic students represent more than 70 percent of those involved in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Currently, African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today.

4. According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates. The data showed that 96,000 students were arrested and 242,000 referred to law enforcement by schools during the 2009-10 school year. Of those students, black and Hispanic students made up more than 70 percent of arrested or referred students. Harsh school punishments, from suspensions to arrests, have led to high numbers of youth of color coming into contact with the juvenile-justice system and at an earlier age.

5. African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison. According to the Sentencing Project, even though African American juvenile youth are about 16 percent of the youth population, 37 percent of their cases are moved to criminal court and 58 percent of African American youth are sent to adult prisons.

6. As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800 percent over the last three decades, women of color have been disproportionately represented. While the number of women incarcerated is relatively low, the racial and ethnic disparities are startling. African American women are three times more likely than white women to be incarcerated, while Hispanic women are 69 percent more likely than white women to be incarcerated.

7. The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses. According to the Human Rights Watch, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but they have higher rate of arrests. African Americans comprise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses. From 1980 to 2007 about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African American.

8. Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes. The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more like to be sentenced to prison.

9. Voter laws that prohibit people with felony convictions to vote disproportionately impact men of color. An estimated 5.3 million Americans are denied the right to vote based on a past felony conviction. Felony disenfranchisement is exaggerated by racial disparities in the criminal-justice system, ultimately denying 13 percent of African American men the right to vote. Felony-disenfranchisement policies have led to 11 states denying the right to vote to more than 10 percent of their African American population.

10. Studies have shown that people of color face disparities in wage trajectory following release from prison. Evidence shows that spending time in prison affects wage trajectories with a disproportionate impact on black men and women. The results show no evidence of racial divergence in wages prior to incarceration; however, following release from prison, wages grow at a 21 percent slower rate for black former inmates compared to white ex-convicts. A number of states have bans on people with certain convictions working in domestic health-service industries such as nursing, child care, and home health care—areas in which many poor women and women of color are disproportionately concentrated.

Theses racial disparities have deprived people of color of their most basic civil rights, making criminal-justice reform the civil rights issue of our time. Through mass imprisonment and the overrepresentation of individuals of color within the criminal justice and prison system, people of color have experienced an adverse impact on themselves and on their communities from barriers to reintegrating into society to engaging in the democratic process. Eliminating the racial disparities inherent to our nation’s criminal-justice policies and practices must be at the heart of a renewed, refocused, and reenergized movement for racial justice in America.

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by Erin on March 15, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Gender, Human Rights Violations, interesting articles, Law reform, people, Policy, Race /Ethnicity
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Posted by Erin on March 15, 2012

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/the-top-10-most-startling-facts-about-people-of-color-and-criminal-justice-in-the-united-states/

Whitney…A Life Shared?

Didn't We Almost Have It All

Whitney's bathroom where she holed up to smoke crack -perhaps not all that different to bathrooms and coffee tables we know?

This was written just after Whitney died though just tidied up and re-posted today.Hi, I just felt I should raise a flag, have a moment, share a thought about Whitney Houston. Now although it isn’t really relevant here I will say Im not a great fan of her music as such, despite acknowledging her incredibly beautiful voice, but that shouldn’t stop me from feeling something for a sister lost the fight to stay alive and function well whilst taking drugs.Whitney, I remember, informed me (through reading about her escapades) of crack smoking methods for the very rich; ie -she made her own ‘the crack blunt’ or ‘crack cigar’ -basically using cigar papers, (or by emptying a cigar) she’d roll up marijuana, stuff loads of it in there, and stick an 8 ball of crack in there as well -and that was how she would smoke! Now thats an 8th of an ounce my friends (3.5 gms yes?).  She talked about this on her 2009 Oprah interview.. Now just imagine that to blow your Godamn socks off! And of course she would cook up her crack, it appeared looking at the fotos of her bathroom that were exposed a couple of years back (and re-exposed recently -see pic). She would cook up coke in the spoon, so she had obviously ditched the fussy freebase way and just gone straight for the bicarb. Although her chauffeur of many years has recently come out and said his car caught fire when Whitney and Bobbi were freebasing in the backseat of their limmo which they seemed to do regularly, inbetween her late night limmo rides to Compton, a dangerous gangland area where she could buy crack and dope at any time of the day or night.

whitney's bathroom

Now anyone who has experienced the scary intensity of a stimulant dependence will know, looking at Whitney’s bathroom pics, at what kind of state she would have been in, and when your bathroom gets like that, then things are pretty intense. But it was the psychological stuff that was really concerning, that level of drug activity is going to end up in disaster -and with stimulants you just know that paranoia is going to set in at some stage down that drug smoking road when your using massive amounts of stimulant drugs.
Whitney’s psychosis got so bad (she sent her cleaners home, moved Tina Brown in to tidy up and be her smoking buddy when Bobby wasn’t around-Tina being Bobby’s sister who also had a crack problem) and she just lived in her bathroom and bedroom. Tina, after some time sold her story to the press, with pictures of the bathroom, but worrying had said said that Whitney would be covered in bruises where she used to hit and punch herself really hard becoz she thought demons were coming up through the floor into her body – or she would see them trying to get out of her body and into Bobby Brown so she’d hit herself again. It must have been crazy to live like that and it is incredible really that it seemed to go on for so long.

It really sounded like a painful existence, to have all that money and all those drugs, and because society does not let us discuss our drug user sensibly,  and the media will not let celebrities have a drug problem without screwing them to death over it -people just hide stuff, take cover, get out the way of people who will judge you as so often so many do…

Whitney’s daughter seems to have her own problems, her ex boyfriend saying she has a serious coke problem and pictures being leaked of her snorting lines…How on earth she managed to grow up level headed in those extremely intense and excessive surroundings -must have been almost impossible -  however she certainly did have a close relationship with her mother – who did seem to share an especially strong bond with her -which surprises none of us as we know how deep that love for our children goes – drugs or no drugs.  She ‘appears’ to have a drug problem as cited by ex boyfriends etc, and she was certainly around her mum and dad when things were at their craziest (the chauffeur stating Whitney regularly smoked crack in front of Bobbi, as well as her husband. I imagine the drug taking would pale into insignificance when trying to cope with a large helping of cocaine psychosis. According again, to Tina Brown, (though it clearly has a ring of truth to it mirroring dutifully what really does happen in coke induced freakouts) Whitney would get screwdrivers  to pull apart all sorts of appliances  and objects thinking she was being bugged and spied on, and would spend months in just her pyjamas. How Bobbi jnr will fare is anyone’s guess in Hollywood with all that money and temptation all around you to just wanna forget…

We are starting to hear now about the days before Whitneys death and her totally wasted state. I dont know what im trying to say about all this except it seems painful indeed to watch (becoz we can watch it all) how someone, who really did have one of the best voices of all time -fall into such a desperate state. Her interviews with Oprah make compelling viewing, she was clearly in love with Bobby Brown, truly madly and deeply, despite him appearing like a temperamental bully, who would flip into a rage at a seconds notice and whom she always seemed to be appeasing. What a mess it all got. How awful to have ones messes thrown across the pages of the worlds tabloids and gossip columns for all to see..However for reading the views of people really quite well placed to comment, Whitney was also a victim of the addiction society has of stigmatising drug using women -there either the victim -usually of bad men -(like Whitney) or the temptress and vixen, like Courtney Love. Amy Winehouse (victim of bad men again), Lyndsay Lohan (temptress and manipulator).  Whitneys chauffeur of 4 or so years said it was Whitney that 9 times out of 10 wanted to go and score, demanding to get high, now, and not Bobby the demonized husband. (Though he does appear the violent and jealous type with a huge chip on his shoulder struggling under the shadow of his way more talented wife)…

It is said Whitney has spent her 100 odd million fortune and was effectively broke just recently. That is some serious goddamn money to go through on drugs and fast living and Im sure she had some good times amongst all that! There was a purpose to all that activity! Fun! Imagine what you would do with all that money and drugs and resorts to indulge in! And then, you start taking drugs to forget the mess your leaving all around you…

Again, im not sure what i am trying to say, just that I wanted to remember her, hold up a little torch and say -as a using community – we understand the difficulties of drug dependence when it gets really ugly -and I just wish we didnt have a society that has made it almost impossible for society to learn how to use drugs in moderation, not in excess, that we could buy clean, safer, cheaper drugs…It is perhapsnot suprising at all however that we will probably find Whitney died from prescription drugs given to her by a multitude of doctors who just kept accepting the cheques she gave for another prescription (but we cant blame the Dr’s really either coz we know how they get hassled and pleaded with to prescribe something to help/get through). But it is typical nevertheless -Get her off the illicit drugs only to stuff her full of the legal ones. Im not blaming anyone here, just trying to show some sadness for the way Whitney spent the last years of her life. It doesnt seem right does it? It doesn’t seem right she appeared to be left in this truely psyched out state, for so long. What happened there i wonder? She was clearly a diva and had a rotten temper of late but so many people claimed to adore her…Was she just too difficult and people had pretty much given up? Or were people turning a blind eye, and what they didn’t see every day, didnt happen. Too complicated, too hard, too busy today….

We will remember her amongst our using community, as yet another victim of Hollywood’s massive excess, (though not, as stanton Peele says, because of Hollywood itself) the hypocrisy, and a developing drugs culture in our society that has no ability to guide generations effectively through the tricky minefield of psychoactive substances.
RIP Whitney..

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by Erin on February 23, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in drugs, entertainment, Global, people, Remembrances
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Posted by Erin on February 23, 2012

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/whitney-a-life-shared/

The Surprisingly Low Addiction Rates of Crack, Heroin, and Meth

Crack Heroin Meth For Life – Not!

Here is an interesting blog I just discovered -Narco Polo (www.suburra.com), a guy who is devoting his site to the pursuit of recreational drug use. His name is Rob Arthur. In his own words he is “A former inner-city teacher and public defender”. His book, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos, takes “An anthropological look at how wrong and debilitating our beliefs are about sex, drugs, and more. It won the 2008 Montaigne Medal for most thought-provoking independent book.

Rob explains that the purpose of his blog, entitled Narco Polo is to defend recreational drug use -” and all other consensual adult activities – that the American government deems criminal. When media sensationalism and government propaganda are confronted with facts, it is apparent that the unintended consequences of these prohibitions have caused much greater suffering than the activities themselves.” Well said Rob! He certainly has something to say and would be worth a read and returning to now and again to see what interesting viewpoints he throws up.  Here’s a link to an interesting but brief blog, but do look around for some other gems.

The Surprisingly Low Addiction Rates of Crack, Heroin, and Meth

.Crack Heroin Meth For Life - Not

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by Erin on January 30, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in drugs, entertainment, people, Psychology
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Posted by Erin on January 30, 2012

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/the-surprisingly-low-addiction-rates-of-crack-heroin-and-meth/

Video of the Russian Embassy Protest Dec 1st 2011

This is a video of the global protest that was held on World AIDS day 2011, in around 12 cities around the world, led by the drug using community and INPUD, the International Network of People who Use Drugs -protesting against to the Russian government’s shameful inaction regarding the drugs and HIV catastrophe unfolding in the region.

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by Erin on January 29, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Campaigns, drugs, Global, people, Remembrances, video
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Posted by Erin on January 29, 2012

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/video-of-the-russian-embassy-protest-dec-1st-2011/

Dec 1st Russian Embassy Protest -Be there!

The Red ribbon is a symbol for solidarity with...

WORLD AIDS DAY

On Dec 1st, 2011, World Aids day, people in 8 countries around the world will descend on Russian Embassies -To protest at the criminal treatment of people who use drugs – in the biggest catastrophe in the history of HIV in recent times. (See below for where and when).

In Russia today, we are bearing witness to one of the biggest, avoidable catastrophes in the history of HIV – the lack of response to the epidemic in Russia. We must point directly to the specific responsibility that Russian medical and public health officials bear for creating and sustaining this disastrous situation. Of particular concern are Russia’s, brutalising drug policies and its recently revised Total War on Drugs, which has resulted in further pushing people who use drugs into hiding, prison, and enforced detention, and severely compromising efforts from the international community to revert the trajectory of HIV/AIDS. The world is approaching a crossroads; a strong and decisive downward trajectory in the epidemic is possible in all countries -but it will only happen if the people who are most vulnerable to infection are supported and their human rights realised. Governments have legal obligations to act. Indeed, the implementation of harm reduction measures is consistant with and required by states obligations under international human rights law. 1,2.

Injecting drugs with contaminated equipment is driving Russia’s HIV epidemic, now the fastest growing in the world and it is reflected in the numbers; as many as 80% of new infections are occurring amongst people who inject drugs (PWID), in a total HIV positive population of approx 1million. With this in mind, recent projections forecast an additional 5 million people could become infected with HIV in the near future, unless Russia transforms the way it is dealing with its HIV pandemic.6

Russian authorities have repeatedly come in for fierce international criticism over their policy towards the treatment of drug dependence, which relies almost completely on the promotion of abstinence to the exclusion of harm reduction.  Russian officials claim, incorrectly, that the effectiveness of opiate substitution therapy (such as providing methadone and buprenorphine) has not been adequately demonstrated, and as such it is prohibited by law. Yet, despite the addition in 2005 of these two drugs to WHO’s list of essential medicines, and multiple position papers by international experts calling for substitution treatment as a critical element in the response to HIV (IOM, 2006; UNODC, UNAIDS, and WHO, 2005), methadone or buprenorphine remain prohibited by law in Russia and promotion of its use – punishable by a jail sentence.
Compare this legitimate injection kit obtained...

Sterile needles and syringes are proven ways to prevent the spread of HIV

With over 30,000 people dying from drug overdoses every year, numbers that can be shown to markedly reduce with the implementation of OST, and 150 becoming infected with HIV each day (2/3rds of which are injecting drug users), also evidenced to drastically reduce with the roll out of Needle and Syringe Programmes (NSP), it is upon everyone who cares about humanity, to demand an immediate transformational shift in Russia’s approach to HIV prevention and its treatment of drug users.  Access to NSP and OST is in itself, a human right;  UN Ruman Rights Monitors have specifically stated harm reduction interventions as necessary for states to comply with the right to health. 5)

Consistent evidence from around the world shows that treatment for opiate dependence works most effectively when the exclusive goal of abstinence is widened to foster multiple outcomes – including reduction in use of illicit opiates, exposures to blood-borne infections such as HIV and hepatitis, reduction in drug overdoses, better management of existing health problems etc. Evidence has repeatedly shown the clear benefits to the individual and society as a whole when drug dependence is viewed as a public health issue, as opposed to a criminal one. Evidence also shows OST, combined with a range of harm reduction measures such NSP, leads to a drastic reduction in the spread of new HIV infections in countries across the globe; none of this more clearly demonstrated today, than in Netherlands, a world leader in harm reduction where in 2010, only ONE injecting drug user contracted HIV. In the UK, another country that has harm reduction at the centre of its HIV prevention strategy, prevalence of HIV amongst drug injectors is at 1.5%, this against a Russian HIV prevalence backdrop of 30-35%. The evidence on harm reduction has been in for years. Why does Russia continue to turn its back?
The Russian government‘s estimated annual expenditure related to drug law enforcement) equal approx 100 million US  dollars. 7. This amount does not include the money spent on detention and imprisonment. In stark comparison, only 20 million US dollars was allocated to HIV and hepatitis B and C  prevention combined, among all population groups in 2011. By 2013, amounts spent will be three times less. Considering the context and tendencies in the development of the HIV epidemic in Russia, clearly such policies are not leading to any positive results. No money at all is allocated towards HIV prevention among the injecting drug using population.6Such punitive and torturous approaches to tackling drug use are not only fuelling the HIV epidemic in the region, but also the stigma, hate and ignorance of drugs, and of people who use drugs.  The insistence by both the Russian government and medical profession to treat drug users as criminals that need imprisonment at worst, and at best – enforced detention, has meant harm-reduction programs, including needle exchange, are officially accused of propagandizing drug use and activists have been arrested, harrassed and imprisoned for promoting harm reduction measures. Demonstrators who have protested and spoken out against the Russian response to HIV/AIDS are also regularly arrested and detained, including HIV positive people calling for access to ARV’s (drugs to treat HIV) and an end to treatment interruption fuelling drug resistant strains of HIV.This World Aids Day, December 1st 2011, we will echo the urgent voices of Russian drug users who are living and dying in the grip of an HIV and TB pandemic with almost no recourse or chance to engage in or promote an effective response.  . We will gather at Russian embassies around the world to demand Russia to change it current course towards death and disease. We want to see inappropriately aggressive, state sponsored hostility to drug users replaced by enlightened, scientifically driven attitudes and more equitable societal responses” 3 We demand our own countries to apply pressure wherever and whenever they can, voicing publicly our concerns about human rights abuses in the Russian response to drug use and HIV.
Sound, evidenced based and cost effective harm reduction solutions stand at the forefront of what has been shown to effectively prevent HIV infection in the drug using community. The personal narratives of people who use drugs and their allies on the front line of human right struggles must be recognised and remain a key part of today’s growing evidence base. People who use drugs must be seen as central players in the search for solutions rather than being framed and targeted as the problem.
Nothing About Us Without Us  www.inpud.net
Dec 1st at Russian Embassies in London, Stockholm, Berlin, Bucharest, New York, Sydney/Canberra, Spain (?), and Toronto. Dec 1st
 for times and locations follow updates at http://russianembassyprotest.wordpress.com or (add your email/website)

1) UNIDCP Flexibility of Treaty positions as regards harm redcution approaches, decision 74/10 Geneva UN 2002 ,
2) UNODC World Drug Report Vienna 2009
3) Lancet July 2010 HIV in people who use Drugs
4) The right to the highest attainable standard of health; Article 12, comment 14  International Covenent on  Economic, Cultural and Social Rights 2000
5) Barrett D et al;  Harm Reduction and Human Rights, the Global response to drug related HIV Epidemics. London, HRI, 2009
6) News Release, Oct 7th 2011, Risk of HIV Hitting Catastrophic Levels; from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network; Eurasian Harm Reduction Network; Harm Reduction International;
7) Articles 228-233 of the Russian Criminal Code

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1 Comment
by Erin on November 14, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Campaigns, drugs, Hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Violations, peer work, people, Policy
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Erin on November 14, 2011

http://blackpoppymag.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/dec-1st-russian-embassy-protest-be-there/

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