While politicians and the media whip up a moral panic about the dangers of drugs, local groups are quietly getting on with vital work to ensure drug safety.

Jim Carey talks to Exodus and other streetwise activists


An Overdose of Rhetoric


The Exodus Collective's Drug Squad

The cyclone of media analysis and political condemnation following the death of Leah Betts is in many ways symptomatic of the state of the nation's debate on drugs. 'There was an over-reaction to her death', Dr John Henry, a consultant at Guy's Hospital, in London, and scientific advisor to the National Poisons Unit, told Red Pepper. And he should know - he got hundreds of media enquiries following the tragic incident and has been the name most quoted to lend scientific weight to confident media conclusio ns. 'An awful lot was made of it that wasn't very scientific because the press were jumping on every word.'

From the word go, Leah Betts' death was treated as a performance and given relevance via the use of her tragedy as a symbol for the nation. National newspapers carried photographs of the 18-year-old lying comatose in hospital, while her parents - her father is an ex-policeman - appeared on television to denounce drugs with understandable emotion.

When police originally suggested the tablet might have been contaminated, the headlines screamed of the dangers of taking a pill with unknown contents. When scientists pronounced the tablet to be uncontaminated MDMA, the headlines trumpeted the dangers of 'ecstasy poisoning'.

Then, despite the fact that the official inquest will not be held until next year, one small piece of information was leaked to the press. The extraordinarily low plasma sodium levels in Betts' blood lead toxicologists to conclude that she had in fact died of an overdose of water. At this stage the media bandwagon, fuelled as it was by sensational sociological simplicities, stalled. The possibility that Betts died from ingesting too much water was too complicated to explain and the analytical deluge dried up as quickly as it had began.

'It's typical - the media didn't like that result because it wasn't what they wanted to be saying - it wasn't sensational - so they didn't go into it,' observes Chris Hughes, an HIV-prevention and drug-outreach worker in Hillingdon, Middlesex. By that stage, however, many hastily reckless assessments had been fed into the public's consciousness, creating what Hughes describes as 'a barrier against the true messages about drugs'. So what is the true message about drugs?

'Just say know,' states Greg Pope, a member of the Luton-based dance collective, Exodus. This group puts on regular free raves, mostly squatting long-disused buildings and local quarries around Bedfordshire. The dances attract around 2,500 people and always feature a first-aid team and the concerned eyes of the Exodus Drug Squad. 'The trouble comes with all this hysterical bullshit they're telling kids about Ecstasy, the killer drug. Then the kids go to arave, perhaps have an E, a good time and find out that Ecstasy is safe if you know what you're doing. Then they think that if the official line is giving us bullshit about E, then they're probably giving us bullshit about heroin and crack and that perhaps these drugs are safe as well. It's a dangerous precedent.' As a member of Exodus' Drug Squad, Pope keeps an eye on the dance floor. 'A lot of kids go out to a rave and take immense amounts of drugs to impress people. I just try and get it across without being authoritarian that we're unimpressed by people trying to "big it up".' As senior members of the collective, it's obvious to fellow ravers that Pope and the Squad know what they're talking about, investing their advice with a greater chance of not falling out of a young raver's other ear. 'I don't give them lectures, but they know that I'm a little bit older and have some experience and they respect that.'

'If we see someone having a hard time we take them to the first-aid tent,' relates Jossy, an Exodus Collective steward. 'It's almost impossible to die at our raves, there's too many caring and knowledgeable people. We've got nurses who come, doctors who come, ex-drug addicts and ex-drug makers. Such a wide tapestry of people results in collective knowledge.'

Indeed, the value of Exodus's street-level experience is starting to gain recognition. 'They were labelled by the police as these raves where the drugs are, but Exodus actually counsel the youngsters on drugs and I think they do very good work in this town,' says Luton Borough councillor Larry McGowan. Members of the collective also patrol the dance floor handing out water, particularly around the speakers where people are sweating most. Of the estimated 53 Ecstasy-related deaths in the UK since 1990, 46 have been due to dehydration. 'People die at raves mostly because they get overheated,' states Dr Henry.

This may sound contradictory to the alleged water-toxic nature of Leah Betts' death, but the circumstances in her case were different. She took a tablet of Ecstasy at a relatively sedate 18th birthday party in her family home, not at a sweaty dance. As Ecstasy is known to inhibit the kidneys' removal of water from the blood, drinking water is only necessary if the user is losing it via sweating.

'You only take fluid to replace fluid loss,' says Dr Henry. 'If you haven't lost fluid and you load yourself up with water then you might take on board too much.' Once again, Betts' death could well have been avoided if she had been better informed. 'We saw one of these new National Drug Helpline packages the other day,' says Chris Hughes. 'There was a quote in it saying "just drink more water", which is not particularly helpful. We reckon that a litre an hour is about right depending on how hot and active you are.' But while the National Drugs Helpline represents the extent of the national government connection to the realities of the street, local authority recognition of the necessity for using experienced drug-outreach workers is gathering momentum. Hughes is funded by his local health authority and administered by the local council. Among the drug-outreach and HIV-prevention projects he organises is the provision of a 'chill-out' room with accurate drug information at underground raves in Middlesex. 'The local authority know these events attract a thousand young people and they're happy that harm minimisation work is going on. When the local police arrive they just want to know someone is looking after safety. They quite often leave when they see me there.'

Once again, Hughes' primary qualification is that he knows what he's talking about, a fact apparent to the drug users he's attempting to reach. 'I go dancing myself, it's one of my interests, so I get respect from the organisers and sound systems because they see me and what I do as part of it.' Hughes and his team provide massage and counselling, as well as arranging for tablets of Ecstasy to be tested in a local science lab so that content can be regularly monitored.

Carrying out similar work is the Youth Awareness Programme (YAP), part of Newham Drugs Advice Project in east London. They send tablets of Ecstasy to Dr Henry at the National Poisons Unit for analysis. 'We don't recommend that young people use drugs but i f they're going to use them, then we must make sure they don't die of ignorance,' says Joanne Airey, YAP's project manager. Airey and her team regularly go into commercial clubs, including World Dance at Lyd Airport, Sanctuary in Milton Keynes and Venue 44 in Mansfield. 'We go round spraying ravers with water to cool them down; we tell them to drink water - little and often - and to take rests during the night.' YAP is staffed, once again, by people who have the experience to render their advice all the more relevant. 'Many of us are ex-users and when you come from that background, you know why people use drugs and exactly why people don't want to stop using drugs.' Partly funded by Newham Council's education department, YAP has a team of between 50 and 70 volunteers who, as well as attending raves, also run educational programmes at youth clubs and local schools.

Indeed, the presence of drugs in schools was a phenomenon recently highlighted by a detailed study undertaken in comprehensive schools in Manchester by the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependency. Published this year, Drugs Futures received extensive media coverage over its revelation that nearly half the 16-year-olds questioned for the study had tried illegal drugs. Local drug counsellors say it merely confirmed what they already knew, but for a nation smothered in the 'Just say no' government line, it came as a shock. For teachers however, there was relief that a problem they are well aware of finally got an airing.

According to Islington comprehensive teacher Peter Dobson, there is frustration among the teaching profession that teachers are unable to communicate with pupils they can see to be on drugs. 'Anyone who has knowledge of drugs can see from a kid's eyes that they are on something in the classroom. But you can't say anything because they'll ask how you know and then you'll either have to admit that you have some experience or shut up. It's absurd but you're in a legally difficult position and can risk losing your job if you try and have a meaningful discussion about drugs with the pupils who'd most benefit from it.' Dobson estimates that 40 to 50 per cent of the teachers in his school smoke cannabis, but the recent dismissal of a head teacher in Scotland for the possession of a tiny amount of cannabis is testament to the possible reprisals. Despite this, Dobson (a pseudonym at his insistence) still considers 'risking talking to pupils when I think they might be about to blow their GCSEs'.

Some of this responsibility to 'relate and inform' is taken on in Manchester's comprehensives by one of Britain's few street-level drug education projects. Started in 1971 by a female psychiatrist, Lifeline has a good reputation for streetwise drug education. Their not-so-secret weapon is Mike Linnell, an extraordinary cartoonist with degrees in both fine art and health education. In 1987, he employed his colourful and acerbic cartoon characters to launch an educational comic on drug use called Smack in the Eye. Since then, he's drawn more than 65 such comics covering a range of drug issues and catering for specific audiences. To make sure each publication has the maximum appeal to its intended readers, he works up the stories and cartoon characters with the help of drug users. 'The old saying is that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. So rather than us just doing something that is aimed at all drug users we have particular groups in mind.'

For their Clare and Josey comic range on recreational drugs, the Lifeline night team - who give advice in clubs on safer dancing - recruited female teenagers who take E and asked them questions about the latest club lingo, the clothes they wear, the jokes they find funny and other info based on their experience. 'By the time we were finishing the series, the fashions had changed, so all the cartoons had to be altered otherwise they weren't acceptable to young people,' says Linnell. Such commitment to keeping educational programmes relevant is the founding ethic behind Lifeline's work. 'All this misinformation masquerading as drug education was in actual fact propaganda - we had to balance that. Young people weren't going to believe you if you said cannabis is going to kill you, so you have to give a factually balanced viewpoint.'

According to Linnell, criticisms of their work have only come from opinionated professionals and politicians, not from users or parents. 'When we started, every lawyer we spoke to said: Don't do it because you'll be arrested and the agency closed down. Now we are inundated with fan-mail and distribute material to parents, schools, clubs, the army, police, churches and the Jockey Club!'

Indeed, Lifeline sells a staggering £210,000 worth of educational comics a year, funding the four paid members of the publications' department and putting a sizeable chunk back into the charity and it's other drug outreach work. 'We consciously took a decision that the publications wouldn't be funded by anybody', says Linnell. 'If somebody was going to fund it, then they were going to be asked for an opinion; if they were asked for an opinion they would stop us from doing it. We wanted editorial independence because it's important to maintain some sort of credibility with your audience.'

Indeed, credibility with their audience is at something of a crisis point for national politicians. People in the know view the political debate on drugs as a sad case of rhetorical overdose and career-fear tongue ties. Meanwhile, the vital work on drug safety is being conducted by community groups at a local level and is proving a far more effective preventative medicine for social tragedies like Leah Betts' death.


Jim Carey is Editor of Squall Magazine, and News Editor of Red Pepper



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