Heroin Addiction and The British System

Volume I Origins and Evolution

John Strang, Michael Gossop, John Strang, Michael Gossop, Michael Gossop, John Strang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134428571
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery

The British system of dealing with drug addiction is notable for its flexibility and its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. Because of this it has attracted considerable international interest, although it is rarely fully understood or accurately represented.

Presenting a comprehensive account of the development of policies and treatments, Heroin Addiction brings together the perspectives of policy makers, practitioners and social commentators. The book contributes to a proper understanding of how policy and practice has evolved so that lessons for future policy and practice may be identified.
Volume II of Heroin Addiction charts the development and use of treatment and policy responses in the UK, highlighting the limitations of these approaches as well as their achievements. It is a unique source of reference for students, researchers, healthcare professionals and drug agencies both in the UK and overseas.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Heroin Addiction and the British System, Volume I Origins and Evolution
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• 1 Misreported and misunderstood: the ‘British System’ of drug policy
• 2 The ‘British System’ and its history: myth and reality
• 3 The early years of Britain’s drug situation in practice: up to the 1960s
• 4 The drugs problem of the 1960s: a new type of problem
• 5 Crawley New Town: case study of a local heroin epidemic in the 1960s
• 6 Intravenous and oral street use of barbiturates: the ‘epidemic’ of the 1970s and early 1980s
• 7 Heroin epidemics and social exclusion in the UK, 1980–2000
• 8 Flexible hierarchies and dynamic disorder: the trading and distribution of illicit heroin in Britain and Europe
• 9 Drug epidemics in space and time: local diversity, subcultures and social exclusion
• 10 The arrival of HIV
• 11 The great Mersey experiment: the birth of harm reduction
• 12 Different types of heroin in the UK: what significance and what relationship to different routes of administration?
• 13 Use of illegal drugs in Northern Ireland: the strange case of a surprisingly small problem
• 14 The relationship between the state and local practice in the development of national policy on drugs between 1920 and 1990
• 15 The development of the voluntary sector: no further need for pioneers?
• 16 AIDS and drug misuse in the UK: achievements, failings and new harm reduction opportunities
• 17 Hepatitis C, the sleeping giant and the sleeping ‘British System’
• Index