NCJ Number
130562
Journal
Druglink Volume: 6 Issue: 3 Dated: (May/June 1991) Pages: 6-9
Date Published
1991
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article describes what happened when drugs became a key political issue in a confrontation between opposing ideologies in Liverpool (England).
Abstract
Closure of the Drug Liaison Office meant the end of a "drug service" that many felt kept the local authorities in the dark ages of prevention and drug education. For ten years, the local authorities had not been fulfilling what should have been a major role in enabling the city to come to terms with its awesome drug-related problems. Preoccupied with their struggle to keep the city above water, fighting the Tories, and more recently fighting Militant, most "moderate" Labour councillors simply accepted the views and reports from their now discredited drug unit. Militants wanted a therapeutic community so they could control its local management committee. They wanted to use this community to attract funding; then via management committee control, design a "socialist" program with "educational" sessions that would help clients achieve a political analysis of drug problems and come out of the program as activists. Another drug education training and research unit was used as propaganda, playing on people's fears about drugs to generate support for forthcoming political battles with the government. It appeared that drug users' welfare had become the bottom of the agenda in the city of Liverpool. (Author abstract modified)