ChavWivaLawDegree

Unless the geezer they are trying to pull is just as desperate!

They have not posted the wording of the petition, but I got the impression they were trying to block it altogether. I just wondered how much consultation is obligatory for this. If it just a planning issue, aren't you within your rights to just post a notice on a few trees near to your premises? If it's a local government inclusivity issue, then there may be more consultation needed, but if they already have a drug treatment centre there, how much consultation would they be expected to undertake regarding methadone dispensing?

Suely the onus is on the person starting a petition to block something, to check what it is they are actually blocking and get their facts straight before they decide to whip everyone up into a frenzy and cause unwarranted fear.

I'm taking notes!!

UPDATE - I went to the Dulwich Medical Centre yesterday for a smear test and while the nurse was poking around, decided to ask her about the new pharmacy. What surprised me was that they already have a special-ist addiction treatment clinic which is very well attended by all kinds of drug addicts at present. So where are all the drug pushers plying their trade and corrupting the local kids? I hung about for ages and failed to score. Also the DMC have obly applied to dispense methadone, they don't want to have a needle exchange, so whoever is saying they do may need to check their facts. And lastly, when I went to Macy's the chemist on Northcross Rd, they had a big wad of petitions against the DMC pharmacy on the counter by the till. I wonder who will benefit the most if the DMC pharmacy proposal is blocked by the this witch hunt?

Ok Andoid, do you want to take the brothels or drug dens? I'll brave the scary as f*&k Chez Valerie

Never saw Budgie, but I don't think it would be as raw as anything I would want to write

So who wants to collaborate on a script?? And who is going to volunteer to do the research??

I can't believe I was too drunk to care about cake! You did a really good job getting everything so nice and rounding up so many people, Mark. Even my moany ex-bf had a good time.

How creative can you be about yet another sell-yer-house programme? What about a soap based in Soho, with all the sex shops, walk in brothels, clip joints, unsavoury pimps, drug dealers and Cafe Nero/Patisserie Valerie/arty types all mixing it up!

I was there quite early, but was gone quite quickly cos I drank too much gin!

Nero - Religious hypocrites have their own reasons and consiences to deal with, so I'm not really bothered about that. What really upsets me is that our Council Tax is paying for a school who are allowed to refuse to admit our kids because they only take catholics, even if it's the closest school. They should not take our money if they won't take our kids. I went to a Catholic school when I was abou 9-10 because my mum is a Catholic and the other schools in the area where not great and they are a bit too cultish for my liking anyway, but it's the principle

Ednerd - A point I would like you to consider - if the DMC was only offering this service to it's own registered patients who have an addiction problem and who are presumably ED residents, would you still oppose it? What about all the other GP's maybe they should be obliged to offer addiction treatment to their registered patients instead of forcing this ghettoisation of addiction services? You are lucky not to have had to deal with addiction, but my mother is an alcoholic, and so where both of my brothers (all much more officially respectable than me by the way). Many people I know suffer from depression and take up some form of addictive behaviour as a result. Sometimes as a diversionary tactic, or just to numb whatever emotional pain they are feeling. I am glad you seem to have some sympathy for victims of abuse, maybe you should extend that to the victims of abuse who end up as alcoholics/drug addicts/prostitutes etc as many of them do.

Ganapti - many people self-medicate with heroin, weed, alcohol etc because of underlying mental health problems, but our system we are supposed to hand power for pretty much all of our functions to 'professionals' and allow them to dictate which drugs we are allowed to be medicated with or addicted to. Seroxat and other extremely dangerous and addictive drugs have been handed out like smarties for as long as the NHS has been around to pick up the tab. If the big drug companies can't make it, we can't have it, but if they do, then health, wellbeing and contol over ones treatment go out of the window in favour of profits for these insidious corporations.

This in my view is a bigger issue than the Dulwich Medical Centre trying to increase their revenue and the non-consultation. Lack of consultation by people weilding power in our names, is a problem in many areas of our lives and needs to be fiercely challenged by all of us, but my wider point is, what makes you feel you have the right to campaign to deny patients of one GP or another access to addiction treatment at their own doctors? If this had just been a needle exchange and addiction treatment for registered patients, rather than a sperate chemist, would you have been happy with that? I doubt it, because I would guess it is actually about your skewed perceptions and fear of drug addicts that is driving this petition.

Ganapti - the reason diabetics don't need to steal for insulin is because the NHS gives them it. If heroin was given to heroin addicts instead of methadone I have no doubt heroin addicts would no longer need to steal (or beg, or work - many hold down jobs) to pay for their medication. If all GP's offered full-services to their patients, including addiction treatment, then there would be even less base for hysterical assumptions that having one in your area would lead to an influx of junkies and abandoned needles.

My head hurts!

Can I bring my dog? He hasn't been out on the piss for the longest time.

I'm actually against methadone prescribing as it prolongs addiction, is harder to withdraw from and makes drug companies loads of money. A close friend of mine went to her local doctors a few years ago for help with an embrionic heroin addiction and was told by her GP that her doctors do not treat addicts, she replied, that was incorrect, they just didn't treat addicts for their addiction problems. 5 years later after her addiction nearly killed her (from the resultant depression - not the heroin) I took her away to my Dad's in Wales so I could look after her disabled daughter while she went through withdrawls. Luckily she wasn't on methadone so the really scary part only lasted 3 days, and by the end of the week she could keep down ice cream and toast. She stayed clean for about 6 months, relapsed a few times, but has now been properly clean for about a year and a half. She has lost a lot of her teeth and has severe asthma from smoking heroin for so long but she is no longer depressed and is coping well with her daughter. If she had been given some help for her addiction in the early stages and the help as a single parent carer that she was entitled to, but incapable of fighting for, I doubt she would have had to go through all those years of darkness and pain. None of us are indistructable, and I hope that if you are ever in a dark place, you will not be shunned and told "there is no help for your sort here". And before any of you assume that her daughter's disability was the result of her heroin addiction, the birth of her blind autistic baby, post natal depression and subsequent fu**ing off of her husband all preceded the heroin addiction.

I'm lucky I have no valuables to get lost, so feel free to wander the scary streets of Peckham whenever I please and I like the fact that if I buy from a producer in the Peckham Farmers Market (which I haven't done for a little while - too broke) it's about 30% less than when the same producer sells the same goods in Borough, Victoria or other farmer's markets. I love this aspect of shopping in Peckham!

Keef - u mean cos we can all get sh**faced for free on methadone instead??

Hmmn, nope no help at all

Haha cos I haven't either, i'm not sure who actually has

Why? I told you I don't know how to play

It's a mad radio 4 game that I have no idea how to play!