Return of the Psychedelics…

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When I met Albert Hoffman in Basle in the late 1970s I had no idea who he was. At a pharmacy student conference, he was the main speaker and I was immediately enthralled and captivated as he outlined his work on the discovery of LSD and his interest in the origins of man’s association with psychopharmacology. I have remained enthralled ever since. I read all I could find on the topic in the years following his lecture. Foolishly I wrote …

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Fifty Years of Drug Prohibition in the UK…

On 27th May 1971 the UK government brought onto the statute books the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) and for the last 50 years this Act has dictated how drugs with a potential for misuse, controlled drugs (CDs), are handled by healthcare professionals and what punishments criminal courts must impose for possession or supplying illegally. The MDA created drug classes and drug schedules and the public often confuse these terms. “Class” determines the level of sanction for possession or supply …

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Sex, drugs and the moral soul…

The human desire to alter mood will always be with us and no amount of effort will eradicate it.  National experiments with drug liberalisation are mostly unsuccessful in the long-term in spite of the initial headline-grabbing claims of reduced harm. Tobacco is a legal drug and where it does not greatly impact mental function it is highly addictive and causes over 2,000 deaths in N. Ireland each year mostly from cancers, heart disease and lung disease.   History gives us some …

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Addiction in a time of crisis…

Mental health is suffering as we remain in lockdown. Those with poor mental health coupled with an alcohol/drug addiction seem to have worsened over recent weeks manifest in more and more bizarre and risky behaviours and an increased need for; antidepressants, anti-psychotics and anxiolytics. It’s time to rethink how we deal with addiction associated with poor mental health because we might not be getting it right. Addiction NI, the local charity that does what it says on the tin, last …

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Join us for a free in conversation event: The drugs don’t work – our over medicated society…

In 2016 our population of 1.8 million received over 41 million prescription items costing over £400m. NI spends 40% more on drugs per head of population compared to England and 20% more than Scotland which is a region of comparable social deprivation.  Do we get 20% to 40% more value from our drug spend in terms of improvements in health and well being? Join us for a one on one discussion with myself (Brian O’Neill) and Terry Maguire. Dr Maguire owns and …

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Prescription Medicines in the Dock – Who is to blame for the increasing drug deaths in our society?

Ireland bucks the UK trend in drug overdose deaths; here they are more likely to result from “prescription medicines” than “illegal drugs”. Coroners locally implicate; tramadol, oxycodone or fentanyl in overdose more frequently than in England, Scotland or Wales where deaths are mainly linked to; heroin or cocaine. One implication is that prescription medicines are more readily available and, extending this logic, doctors and pharmacists are in some way involved; if we did our jobs better drug deaths would be …

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Drug Addiction Services: what is the policy?

We are currently in Belfast experiencing a significant increase in the number of people with drug addictions and I’m informed that similar rises in prevalence are occurring elsewhere.  In addiction things are never simple.  A 24-year-old patient who died back in the spring died of an overdose of opioids – he frequently had a number of fentanyl patches adhered to his body – but he also was a heavy smoker of marijuana and regularly took a range of prescription medicines …

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Is cannabis, a relatively safe drug in adults, more toxic in teenagers?

The mayhem an estimated 900 troubled youths impose on the West Belfast community – a community of 100,000 souls – is staggering according to a N. Ireland Assembly report which is putting in place a support programme to turn lives around.  These individuals, mostly males, mostly in their late teens and early twenties, act antisocially which is a problem yes but the real worry is that, for a small but significant number at least, self-harm and suicide is a real …

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An insight into the latest drugs crisis in Belfast…

I attended a community meeting called to address the local “Drug Crisis”. My invitation to join the panel was at short notice but I accepted; I am the local pharmacist and I am a concerned citizen. The last time this problem got out of hand I ended up with the point of a Bowie knife up my nose. The stimulus for the meeting was the weekend deaths of two local young men from drug overdose. A 27 year old was …

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Families paying a high price for teen drug abuse…

I am witnessing the brutal and cruel torture of three women.  They have never met yet each tells the same painful story and each can see no way out of their problems.   If they fail to find a solution, and there is no guarantee they will, this continuing abuse will lead, slowly and inevitably, to their own destruction.  They are victims brought low by circumstances beyond their control and they are imprisoned by a hard-wired human emotion; motherly love. Each …

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Getting screwed by Big Pharma – Female Passion is not something that can easily be medicalised…

  A customer complaint that his Viagra had not been dispensed led me, with the help of my street-facing CCTV camera, to discover his wife had dumped his Viagra tablets into the street wastepaper bin as she left the pharmacy with his monthly medicines.  I’m not sure how common this phenomenon might be.  Nor am I sure how the average, long suffering, partner of a 60-year-old, overweight male with minimal personal hygiene and bearing a strong resemblance to a church …

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Drug Decriminalisation

Channel 4 showed a documentary a couple of days ago about cannabis. One of the commentators was Dr David Nutt, once the government’s chief drugs adviser until he suggested some decriminalisation, when he was very unceremoniously sacked. Cannabis now comes in two varieties, the original ‘hash’ and modern ‘skunk’. Skunk is a hybrid, and is certainly more dangerous than hash. Without criminalisation, skunk probably would not have been developed, according to the Channel 4 programme. Skunk was developed in the …

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