A wishful fingershake with the medical establishment
Never mind the sexist Moslem woman in the police force who refused to shake hands with her provocateur police commissioner. During almost a decade work in drop-in centres in the 1990s no medical researcher ever offered me even a fingershake let alone a handshake – and I don’t mean the little fingers as they may have had shaken my little finger symbolically by their reductionist attitude anyway.
As I think that the idea of blog has been invented in particular for people in my position – namely hanging in the air –, I will use this opportunity – due to otherwise the lack of it - , to pass some of my observations remembered, without looking for my old times’ notes, to researchers that have somehow ended up reading my blog for reasons they are still not sure about.
In order to get back to my records for details or other observations not remembered presently, I would have to be financed, which is absolutely unlikely.
Now those researchers who have come to believe that I might be having some unexplainable effect on the environment should have no difficulty at all to see my observations as valid enough to be integrated in their research.
But those who think I am a mere storyteller with a good sixth sense would need some adjustment and open mindedness when reading the observations expressed below.
Although I could assure you that I’m whether a superwoman nor a blog-storyteller and it’s only the position I’m in – namely hanging in the air – that creates this confusion –if not havoc-, I rather not assure you of anything. This is because if one is not assured of anything it is impossible to assure others.
But as the poet Sa’di wrote:
man aancheh shart-e balaagh ast baa tou migooyam
tou khaah as sokhanam pand gir khaah malaal
( I speak to you in accord with the condition of passing a message
It will be up to you to take it either as a maxim or as ennui )
By all means please take any information you can use and I won’t even expect you to try to pronounce my surname ever. After all it has four syllables.
But just to bite your finger slightly, know that my name is not pronounced like Cash & Carry, but that both ‘a’s are pronounced like ‘a’ in the word ‘father’.
Observations when practising acupuncture etc:
— As methadone (and now Suboxone?) is not water soluble the treatment for the addiction to this drug – in use as substitute when treating heroin addicts in the UK – is more difficult and slower in reaction to acupuncture than the treatment of the addiction to heroin.
Heroin being related to poppy is water soluble and can be flushed away from the system within a short period of time, whereas methadone being a synthetic drug lingers in the system for a longer period of time preventing the usually expected emergence of a sense of recovery and well being, even when the patient is mentally and emotionally really ready and keen to stop.
In general if a heroin addict is not killed by overdose before the age of 38-40 and is financially not well off enough to maintain their habit while perusing other interests, they tend to show a genuine readiness to give up the habit around this age. This can be for health reasons and/or to save money, as there is usually a shift in their interests towards other things in life when older, instead of the constant preoccupation with the issue of ensuring availability of the drug for the day.
As apparently before the use of heroin became unlawful in the UK in 1971 there were only 500 - 5000 heroin addicts around, whereas now there are an estimated 280,000 -500,000 heroin addicts (York University data), a revision of the law and the methods of treatment is long overdue*. This becomes even more urgent as the prisons are overcrowded mainly due to a high percentage of crimes being drugs related.
Of course I am aware of the role that the pharmaceutical industry plays in the way the use of certain drugs becomes a common practice amongst the physicians, but that kind of consideration for the financial interests of this industry has to be scrapped if a genuine solution of the present problem is desired.
The use of highly addictive chemicals in the production of cigarettes (and now tobacco in general) creates a similar difficulty, as those chemicals are not easily flushed away from the system either.
A strict ban on the use of any chemicals in tobacco/cigarette production is inevitable if the concerns for the health of the nation and the high costs for cancer treatments are genuine.
A few suggestions here:
- for people who have become addicted to methadone during the process of the treatment for heroin addiction, a return to an opiate for their withdrawal symptoms from methadone before having natural treatments like acupuncture may be an easier way forward. (Unfortunately never expressed to those who may have benefited in the past)
- In any addiction the encouragement to redirect the focus to other interests in life is more effective than the sole emphasis on stopping the addiction only, without that any other changes in the person’s life is taking place simultaneously.
With other words the focus should not be on how to NOT TO DO/abuse something but on helping the person to explore their interests and to start to DO the things they would like to do in life while freeing themselves from the drug. By this I mean the more positive form of ‘doing’ something different, rather than the negative form of the focus on the ‘not doing’ way of thinking.
- Afghanistan is at present the major producer of opium. Europe is by no means the only place to be effected by this issue. Iran (population of 69 million) sharing border with Afghanistan has an estimated 2 million addicts (circa 3%) which does not even include opium abusers, as realistically no opium addict in Iran is likely to speak to their physician about their addiction. According to Iran Focus 11 million Iranians are affected by drug abuse.
The reason the Afghani farmers turn to growing opium poppy is that during hard times e.g. lack of water or wars, it is the easiest way to feed their families. Once the poppy seed is thrown on the ground it grows without any need for care regardless of the weather. Of course opium poppy can also grow easily in many other places throughout the world.
Obviously it is not these Afghani farmers who make the real profit from the worldwide drug business. As they in fact receive very little the support they would need to stop the farming of the poppy does not to be that costly either.
With other words in order to tackle the problem of availability and pushing of the opiates worldwide, the farmers in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) must be helped and subsidised so that they can grow healthy crops for the consumption by their families and their wider community.
- The extensive use of opiates by the Iranians may not solely have been caused by the social frustration of the public in general:
Opium has been used as an antidote for acute lead poisoning (See Boericke/Materia Medica/abuse of lead). It is likely that many Iranians, especially those who spend most of their time working on the road or in and out of the shops, instinctively attempt the use of opiates in order to relieve the symptoms of plumbism in the polluted cities of Iran.
If on an evening during the winter you manage to take a walk on the pavements of the most polluted streets of Tehran and are lucky enough not to feel that you are going to have a heart attack in no time at all, you will be able to see how all the addicts sit comfortably on the pavement leaning against the wall and dreaming of a different place. Religion is not the ‘opium of the masses’ (Karl Marx) in Iran anymore. As a matter of fact in Iran today it is the opiates now that are becoming the religions of the masses. In some universities let’s say Kerman almost all students smoke opium.
In contrast when I was a child I had seen only one man who was addicted to opium, and my mother - when talking about him - used to say that her uncle lived the life of a plant (zendegi-e giaahi).
- Although acupuncture can be effective in increasing the CD4 Count in people who are HIV+, I did observe an unusually higher and sudden increase of CD4 Count in case of a client who was regularly taking what she joyfully called poppy juice (extract or decoction). I’m not sure if her GP knew about her habit, but as she was generally complaint free at the time, the observation of others in similar situation may prove useful. To do this in Iran should not be difficult as many HIV+ people may be on shireh anyway.
- UK has the highest number of cocaine sniffers in Europe.
Although there are a relatively small numbers of individuals who would take any drugs that come their way, there is in general a big difference in mentality between for instance a cocaine sniffer and a heroin addict.
Whereas the heroin user is a type of person who has usually found it difficult to cope with stress from an early age, the type who would go for cocaine is someone who has grown up with stress and used to live with it. The sniffer type is either out of job and wants to forget about it by heightening their senses or more likely is employed having a boring job. But the likeliest is that this person has a competitive job and strives to gain time by keeping awake. For this reason don’t be surprised if you hear that in stock & exchange offices managers distribute cocaine amongst their employees in order to keep them awake all night for the sake of the round the clock international market.
There is a small group like fashion models of course who sniff the stuff in order to suppress their appetites for food.
But the suppressed issues of the fashion designers and their obsessions with women disguised in boyishly thin bodies are a different matter altogether, for which I have no time at present. Except, it looks like I have made my point already, unless they want to claim being only tight when spending on fabrics. Do these fashion designers ever have families and children that they get worried about? Come on media! Expose the lives of the fashion designers for a change and give the film stars a break as well, but not for too long, just enough to make them appreciate your return.
We know that working overtime is a common practice in the UK and almost expected by many employers often without the extra pay. Many employees fear the fierce competition and comply.
I have come to believe that there is a direct relationship between these two phenomena occurring in the UK. The more overtime and long hours of work is expected of the employees the higher the number of those who will sniff cocaine in order to keep going.
So, a decision has to be made and it will be telling of the nature of the current state:
Just accept cocaine in order to exploit people more through overwork or limit work strictly to 35 hrs a week.
If more developed and truly concerned for people’s health then aim for 28 hrs a week work limit, while encouraging leisure and persuasion of hobbies amongst the population at the same time and observe as a result a decrease in stress related coronary disease as well.
And if you think I am a hopeful dreamer is because you are hopeless.
I will add to this article if I remember other points at a later date.
* I wrote most parts of this article over a week ago. Today while doing a search I saw today’s article in Independent which indicates that the positive results of the Switzerland model (which was based on the pre 1971 UK model) in heroin treatment and their report of a drastic reduction of the number of new addicts has made the UK system prone to revise their policies as regards to the heroin business and those addicted to it.