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Needle exchange is a vital resource for drug addicts
• I FELT the need to write in to you after reading your article (Outrage at Secret Drug Clinic Plan, March 26).
I am a 27-year-old recovering heroin addict who lives in Camden. I came off heroin in January with magnificent help and support from the Margarete Centre which is a drug centre on Euston Road.
Thanks to the help of the people who work there, I am now on methadone, which I take every day and I haven’t touched heroin for nearly four months.
I am extremely grateful for the help they have provided me and continue to provide.
I think that the residents who are opposing the opening of a “supersize centre” are disgustingly hypocritical.
They are quick to complain about drug addicts being on the streets using drugs, begging for money and buying drugs blatantly in the open but when there are plans to open a place that helps people get their lives back on track, and supply medicine and counselling to keep them off the drugs, these residents are up in arms claiming that if this drug centre opens it will “infringe on their day-to-day life.”
They also allege that drug dealers will target “ready made customers”.
Reading that statement appalled and upset me. I have been going to the Margarete Centre since the end of December and I have never seen drug dealers outside or near the centre.
The centre has a strict policy that you aren’t allowed to gather in a group outside, as it would be intimidating to the nearby residents. They are very strict about this. Whenever there are more than two people, even just smoking a cigarette, they disperse them.
I was incensed at Jo Weir stating “There is no value in having a needle exchange in this area. It simply surrounds the addicts with temptation because the dealers know where to go.”
A needle exchange is a vital place for addicts to come and get clean needles so they are not at risk of getting diseases like hepatitis and HIV and a place where they can bring their used needles instead of discarding them on the street for someone to step on them or a small child to pick them up.
I know full well that Jo Weir would be quick enough to complain if she found dirty used needles in the area that she lives in.
It is also total rubbish to say that having a place for addicts to deposit their needles and receive clean, unused, ones is surrounding them with temptation.
As I said, I have never seen any drug dealers anywhere near the centre. People go there to get off the drugs and pick up their methadone.
It is not a place they go to participate in buying and selling drugs.
I think it is morally wrong and reprehensible for people not to want a place where addicts can get better and get the help they need to get clean from drugs.
I am living proof that these centres are of value.
The article states that Camden has some of the highest levels of class A drug users.
A large centre will only help to reduce this number and as health chiefs say will contribute to cutting crime.
And isn’t that just what the residents of Camden really want? A drug-free area.
name and address supplied
Not on the agenda?
• FURTHER to your article (Outrage at Secret Drug Clinic Plan, March 26) and the so called public consultation programme, I represent the Judd Street Residents’ Association and add to the concerns expressed by other local associations.
At the public meeting today (Thursday) will NHS Camden and Camden Council explain why the one item that Camden residents are so concerned that they should be consulted on is not on the agenda?
The public consultation document is flawed in that it does not offer to consult on this major issue of location.
Indeed the whole document is conclusion-led and does not offer any element of choice to local people.
Residents want to be involved in this decision and would welcome their concerns and comments being taken into consideration.
The consultation document does not offer this opportunity. When the location has been decided, will NHS Camden and Camden Council offer some measure of transparency and reconsult with local residents on this concern which is most important to us?
DAVID IRVING
Sandwich Street, WC1
Realism on addiction
• WHY a secret drug clinic plan?
Why not show leadership and proclaim that, at last, the council and the health authority are getting together to do something realistic about the drug problem.
Addiction is a medical problem and a clinic would have a good chance of helping addicts, reducing the crime they commit to get their drugs, reduce the nuisance to residents where they congregate and leave their needles, and undermine the dealers.
Think of the amount to be saved in police and court time and the huge expense of prisons. Let’s welcome it.
MARY BARNES
Oak Village, NW5
Insult on consultation
• YOUR article on the proposals from Camden Council and the primary care trust to opening a drug treatment centre south of the Euston Road without full consultation on the location will clearly cause considerable disquiet to residents living in King’s Cross, Bloomsbury, Holborn and Covent Garden (Outrage at Secret Drug Clinic Plan, March 26).
Quality of life is vital for our communities, especially those in central London where there are limited community facilities and open spaces.
It is essential that the council and the PCT work closely with residents to find an acceptable home for the hard drug treatment centre. It is totally unacceptable for Camden to have passed the buck to the private sector on this issue and to say that whoever wins the tender will be allowed to choose what could be a potential epicentre of drug activity.
It is insulting to our communities not to undertake a full consultation, particularly as the previous rejected proposal was castigated in an environmental health impact which realised that drugs blight our communities.
Residents are rightly concerned about the impact of this centre and it is abundantly clear that Camden is washing its hands on its location.
The Lib Dem / Tory administration at Camden and the PCT must work with residents and us to find an appropriate home for this centre. The only way to remove the blight of drugs is to work in partnership with residents, not against them.
CLLR SUE VINCENT
Cllr Julian Fulbrook
Cllr Brian Woodrow
Labour, Holborn & Covent Garden ward
Cllr Penny Abraham
Labour, Bloomsbury ward
Cllr Abdul Hai
Cllr Jonathan Simpson
Labour, King’s Cross ward
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