Dont Label them Junkies

listermint

There is PC and there's PC, where will it end ...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11067028

Don't label heroin users as 'junkies' - Drug Commission

People should stop calling heroin users "junkies" or "addicts", an influential think tank on drugs has said.

The UK Drug Policy Commission said such names stigmatised users and made it more difficult to get off drugs.

Its report suggested that the policing of drugs on the streets and methadone programmes forcing users to go to chemists were "publicly humiliating

Instead, the study said that British society needed to show more compassion towards drug users.

Authors of the six-month report said the terms "junkie" and "addict" were distrustful and judgmental and led to feelings of low self-worth among drug users.

They said these hostile attitudes only added to the stigma of drug addiction and made it harder for users to give up.

'Chemical bondage'

Colin Blakemore of Oxford University, one of the report's authors, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme drug addicts faced stigma "as damaging as similar attitudes to gay people, and people with mental health issues, were 30 years ago".

He added that hostility towards drug addicts failed to recognise how difficult it was for them to quit, describing what they faced as "chemical bondage".

"The crux of this problem, I'm afraid, is the persistent view that drug addiction is the problem of the addict," he said.

The report said the government must tackle what it calls the "extreme prejudice" against drug users if it is to succeed in getting addicts off benefits, back into work and playing a full role in society.

Deirdre Boyd, chief executive of charity Addiction Recovery Foundation, criticised the study, saying it did not focus enough on drug rehabilitation programmes.

"I think the greatest stigma against addicts is to not believe they can't recover, to not believe they can give up drugs," he said.

"People are absolutely desperate to give up… and instead they are diverted onto over-prescription programmes, anything other than the rehab that gets them drug free."

ancapailldorcha

Yes, because calling them poor innocent darlings with a disease will help so much.

kfallon

I will call them 'scum' instead!!!

mikom

listermint wrote: »

'Chemical bondage'

Sounds like an EMO band.

Craebear

Chemical Bondage?

Sounds kinda kinky...but no I'll stick to junkies.

chin_grin

So "junky" = "knacker emo"?

Dravokivich

Don't call people who drink Alchos!

El Guapo!

Senior narcotic technicians

.

El Siglo

I can see this now on Lower Abbey St. on a Friday afternoon, "Ah will ya giz a bit change, I'm undeh chemical bondage"...:rolleyes:
Reminds me of the "Free Hat" episode of South Park where Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas kept remaking their films to make them more PC; "the soldiers' guns have been digitally changed to walkie talkies, and the word "Nazi" has been changed to "persons with political differences"."

syklops

Thread title should be "British QUANGO make statement to justify their funding".

We have the same craic here with the likes of the NRA/NERA/HSE and the other 2 million odd Quangos we have. They need to show something for the piles of cash the government gives them, so they make statements, that were the results of "research". Most of which they made up the day before.

fakearms123

Don't call child molesters pedophiles because it puts a bad label on these people, we should instead call them "kiddie love injectors", this will help child molesters feel less guilty and feel less depressed when they are rape choking their young prey... idiots! :rolleyes:

Sykk

Well the retards knew what they were doing when they started didn't they. Fúck them, junkies.

recylingbin

We should call them T-Rexes due to the way they carry their arms/hands.

Sanjuro

Sideshow Bob: Bart Simpson, that mischeivous little scamp that twice sent me to that dank urine soaked hellhole.

Parole Officer: Uh...We object to the term "urine soaked hellhole," when you could of used "peepee soaked heckhole."

Sideshow Bob: Cheerfully withdrawn.

cruiser178

Dravokivich wrote: »

Don't call people who drink Alchos!

agreed,lets call them soberly challenged.

Sykk

Dravokivich wrote: »

Don't call people who drink Alchos!

Not all people who drink are addicted to it. Now I've not heard of people who like the odd line.. JUNKIES! :pac:

rubadub

such names stigmatised users and made it more difficult to get off drugs

I would have given up cigarettes 4 years before I managed to, if only those cruel heartless animals had not called me a smoker. I think some goverment TV ad campaign even went as far as to say "smokers are jokers", christ- I was on the verge of suicide after that, what with my low self worth and all.

listermint

rubadub wrote: »

I would have given up cigarettes 4 years before I managed to, if only those cruel heartless animals had not called me a smoker. I think some goverment TV ad campaign even went as far as to say "smokers are jokers", christ- I was on the verge of suicide after that.

Where you not just an air purification obsolver.?

seamus

I'll just continue to call them "gougers" so. Works for me.

My name is URL

I can kind of see the reasoning behind it tbh.. but the words people use to describe them is fairly low on the list of problems that they have I'd imagine

Irish Guitarist

People should stop calling heroin users "junkies" or "addicts", an influential think tank on drugs has said.

The article calls them "addicts" at least four times.

actuallylike

fakearms123 wrote: »

Don't call child molesters pedophiles because it puts a bad label on these people, we should instead call them "kiddie love injectors", this will help child molesters feel less guilty and feel less depressed when they are rape choking their young prey... idiots! :rolleyes:

Did you really just invent a new this child molester reference, attribute it to someone else and then call them idiots for it all in one sentence?!?

I also can see some reasoning behind it. Whenever I hear a think tank suggesting something I always think about it in the grand scheme of things, that is after all what they think. More understanding and acceptance to their problems may help a lot of them pull themselves out of the gutter. I know there are a lot who don't seem to want help but maybe treating them in a different way may just change their minds? It is after all just a suggestion, may work and may not work, who knows?

Myrddin

This whole PC thing is gone beyond a joke. Pretty soon, referring to somebody as a Human will be frowned upon. If we can't call drug addicts junkies, then I presume we can't call killers killers? Is a rapist still a rapist? Is a boiled egg still a boiled egg?

starbelgrade

EnterNow wrote: »

This whole PC thing is gone beyond a joke. Pretty soon, referring to somebody as a Human will be frowned upon. If we can't call drug addicts junkies, then I presume we can't call killers killers? Is a rapist still a rapist? Is a boiled egg still a boiled egg?

Well, a door is not a door when it's ajar, so....

mickydoomsux

EnterNow wrote: »

This whole PC thing is gone beyond a joke. Pretty soon, referring to somebody as a Human will be frowned upon. If we can't call drug addicts junkies, then I presume we can't call killers killers? Is a rapist still a rapist? Is a boiled egg still a boiled egg?

My big problem is that people think that changing the name of something makes any difference to these situations.

A junkie is a junkie no matter what you call them. They're not going to change their ways just because you give them a nice new pretty name.

actuallylike

EnterNow wrote: »

This whole PC thing is gone beyond a joke. Pretty soon, referring to somebody as a Human will be frowned upon. If we can't call drug addicts junkies, then I presume we can't call killers killers? Is a rapist still a rapist? Is a boiled egg still a boiled egg?

In fairness, the word junkie adds a stigma to the person, a bad stigma that most people don't want top be associated with. Eliminating it may (I'm just saying may now, I completely understand that it may also not work) give the users a bit of a boost to turn their life around?

EnterNow wrote: »

If we can't call drug addicts junkies, then I presume we can't call killers killers?

Well, why can't we call black people n*ggers? It's just a variation on the spanish word negro for black. Why can't we call Spanish people spics? It's just a shortening of Hispanic. Why can't I call a person from Pakistan a Paki? It's just a shortening of their origin?

Reason is that they have over the years been deemed offensive and a slur and I think that is what the author is suggesting, that the word 'junkie' has or is becoming a slur also.

mickydoomsux

actuallylike wrote: »

In fairness, the word junkie adds a stigma to the person, a bad stigma that most people don't want top be associated with. Eliminating it may (I'm just saying may now, I completely understand that it may also not work) give the users a bit of a boost to turn their life around?
.

It won't work. We're far to precious in this country when it comes to junkies and alcoholics. They're not useful members of society. They are a drain on the economy.

I can appreciate the very few who do get clean but the majority will spend their usually short lives with their hand out for their government money and their other hand in someones pocket stealing their wallet.

Utter scum and we shouldn't have to suffer because of their existance.

actuallylike

mickydoomsux wrote: »

It won't work. We're far to precious in this country when it comes to junkies and alcoholics. They're not useful members of society. They are a drain on the economy.

I can appreciate the very few who do get clean but the majority will spend their usually short lives with their hand out for their government money and their other hand in someones pocket stealing their wallet.

Utter scum and we shouldn't have to suffer because of their existance.

So just out of curiosity, what do you suggest?

seamus

actuallylike wrote: »

Eliminating it may give the users a bit of a boost to turn their life around?

Somehow I think social stigma is the last thing a junkie piece of **** is worrying about. If they cared about their social appearance, they wouldn't be on the stuff in the first place.

Well, why can't we call black people n*ggers? It's just a variation on the spanish word negro for black. Why can't we call Spanish people spics? It's just a shortening of Hispanic. Why can't I call a person from Pakistan a Paki? It's just a shortening of their origin?

For a start because you can't choose to be black, Spanish or Pakistani so ethnic slurs have connotations of discrimination, as well as the obvious racism. You choose to be a junkie scumbag.

that the word 'junkie' has or is becoming a slur also.

Good. We should we holding these people up in public as perfect examples of everything that you should never become. Show kids pictures of gaunt and dying junkies with needles hanging out of their arms, blood seeping from the sores on their body. It should be a social stigma, you should be left in the gutter and treated with contempt until you make the decision to get yourself off the junk and get some help.

kfallon

actuallylike wrote: »

Well, why can't we call black people n*ggers? It's just a variation on the spanish word negro for black. Why can't we call Spanish people spics? It's just a shortening of Hispanic. Why can't I call a person from Pakistan a Paki? It's just a shortening of their origin?

For the record I have no problem with people calling me a 'Paddy'

mickydoomsux

actuallylike wrote: »

So just out of curiosity, what do you suggest?

There was a thread a couple of days back about an scheme being suggested, in England i think, where an addicts state benefits would be taken from them if they wouldn't stay off drugs. The argument that this will cause them to get desperate and start stealing to get their money is redundant because they already do that.

We should be doing that here because at the moment, in a recession, the state is giving these people free money every week to buy illegal drugs, housing them for nothing as well as providing them with free travel and all the while these scumbags are still mugging people and robbing houses. There's something fundamentally broken about a society that operates in that manner.

These people should either be made to clean themselves up or they should just be abandoned. We need to stop being babysitters for grown adults.