Drugs Uncut

Sheila Vakharia of the Drug Policy Alliance, author of The Harm Reduction Gap, discusses the development and aims of harm reduction, and hope as a practice.

In this episode of Drugs Uncut, SDF’s Wez Steele is joined by Mat Southwell, Project Co-ordinator at EuroNPUD.

Mat and Wez discuss the key role peers have in the development of policy and practice as well as the effective delivery of services. They also discuss the uniquely British division between harm reduction advocacy and recovery when the community’s diverse experiences and perspectives are most impactful when peers work together.

Mat provides international and UK examples of good practice in involving and compensating peers, and describes the good practice guide to employing people who use drugs  which he created for The International HIV/AIDS Alliance in 2015.

Finally, Mat and Wez discuss Mat’s involvement in research and the distribution of crack pipes in England, how peers are involved and what Scotland can learn.

In this episode Julie and Austin are joined by Adrienne Hannah as she reflects on her career as she retires from SDF. Over 11.5 years with SDF,  Adrienne's work has focused on educating drug services about sexual health and educating sexual health services about drug use. Alongside highlighting this work she shares her insight into current issues related to the HIV outbreak, children and young people, and gender and sexuality.

Arild Knutsen is Leader of The Association for Humane Drug Policy in Norway. Arild recently visited Scotland and presented on the role of people who use drugs in helping develop drug policy in Norway at SDF’s International Overdose Day conference. In this episode, Arild joins SDF colleagues, Jason Wallace, Louise Aitken, and Wez Steele to talk about the representation of living and lived experience voices in policy and service delivery and the effects of stigma from various levels of society.

This episode is part 2 of two part conversation with Arild, to listen to part 1 visit https://drugsuncut.podbean.com/e/changing-attitudes-and-policy-through-living-experience-representation-with-arild-knutsen/

Arild Knutsen is Leader of The Association for Humane Drug Policy, a drug user organisation in Norway.

Arild recently visited Scotland and presented at SDF’s International Overdose Day conference. In this episode, Arild joins SDF colleagues, Jason Wallace, Louise Aitken, and Wez Steele to talk about the influence of living experience; the importance of living experience representation in the media, policy and government; how this involvement plays out in reality and harm reduction initiatives, drug consumption rooms and overdose prevention in each country.

Ryan Marino, MD works in emergency room medicine in Ohio where he encounters the people victimised by America’s opioid overdose crisis. Meanwhile, he fights the myths and ignorance that hinder efforts to address that crisis and specifically synthetic opioids like fentanyl via his social media activity for which he has an audience of 100 000 followers.  Drugs Uncut asked Ryan to share his experience and insight and considers the lessons for the UK where synthetic opioids are being discovered within our heroin supply. 

Drugs Uncut is back! In this episode we are joined by Scottish Drugs Forum’s Louise Aitken and Chris Messenger and discuss employment and training and the Addiction Worker Training Project.

The project has recently seen changes and has received its first funding from The Scottish Government in response to the recommendations of The Drug Deaths Task Force which will double its capacity.

In this episode we are joined by Police Scotland's Assistant Chief Constable for Partnership, Prevention and Community Wellbeing, Gary Ritchie to discuss Police Scotland's pilot test of change project which sees officers carrying intranasal naloxone.

ACC Gary Ritchie helped lead the organisation to participate in Scotland's National Naloxone Programme and in this episode he recounts some of the landmarks and some of the issues that arose in ensuring that police in Scotland could trial the carriage of naloxone. He talks of a public health approach to policing which is part of, and symptomatic of, significant attitudinal and societal changes in Scotland.

Dr Roy Robertson has worked as a GP in Edinburgh since 1980, where he was at the forefront of identifying and taking steps to address the emerging dual public health crises of HIV and injecting heroin use. He is also Professor of Addiction Medicine in the University of Edinburgh Usher Institute.

Throughout his career, Roy has consistently had to challenge the status quo to support the vulnerable people in his care, whilst simultaneously informing the rest of the world through a range of research and policy work.

In this episode, Roy discusses what it was like in the early days of the HIV epidemic in Edinburgh in the 1980s, reflects on his years of practice, and provides insight into the potential solutions to addressing Scotland’s on-going public health emergency - drug overdose deaths.

This episode was recorded especially for World AIDS Day and before the tragic drug-related death figures for Scotland in 2019 were announced on the 15th of December 2020.

Dr Andrew McAuley is currently Senior Epidemiologist within the Blood Borne Virus and Sexually Transmitted Infections team at NHS Public Health Scotland where he has a lead role for projects involving people who inject drugs.

In this episode, Andrew talks to us about his research relating to HIV, naloxone, the Needle Exchange Surveillance Initiative (NESI) and more, including why Glasgow has the most compelling case in Europe for a Drug Consumption Room.