Prisons could be used to deliver residential drug programmes

Categories

Addiction Treatment
Alcohol
Drugs
Gambling
In the papers
On TV

News Archive

Home » News » Drugs » Prisons could be used to deliver residential drug programmes

by Change | 20 Jan 2010

Bookmark

E-mail

A charity leader has called for addiction support to be provided in a residential setting.

Everyone affected by drugs should be able to access addiction support, and this should be provided through residential programmes focussing on abstinence.

This is according to Mark Johnson, former drug user and founder of the Uservoice charity, who wrote in the Guardian that there is "no better opportunity" to deliver these initiatives than in the country's prisons.

He states that thousands of drug users leaving jail are just as addicted as when they went in because prisons are "bursting with legal and illegal drugs".

"While we spend a lot on drug treatment in jail, the strategy is under review because those invol¬ved recognise it is a cocktail of ill-thought-out, uncoordinated programmes," he wrote in the newspaper.

Mr Johnson went on to say that just two per cent of those in need of drug addiction therapy are presented with the opportunity of abstinence in addition to the support they require in a residential setting.

He highlighted the situation by pointing out that, of the 140,000 people who passed through UK prisons in 2009, 20,000 were handed methadone prescriptions as opposed to being offered help to give up drugs completely.

According to the Prison Reform Trust, more than a quarter of male prisoners who are "hazardous drinkers" are addicted to at least one type of drug.

Bookmark this: