*My 7-point Sort Out Brixton plan!

[editor]

Removing the victims to elsewhere does smack of NIMBYism

Oh, for fuck's sake.

I already live with a sharps box on my wall, dealers working outside, crackheads trashing the stairs and needles scattered outside my house, so I really don't need any lectures about NIMBY-ism: try IAIMFBY - It's Already In My Fucking Back Yard!

The simple truth is that the local Chemist providing clean needles resulted in the area in front of my block becoming a shooting gallery, which, in turn, has attracted more junkies and, latterly, crackheads.

I have never seen so many junkies openly injecting as I have in recent months and fail to see how introducing a treatment centre in a densely residential area would improve things.

As for different locations, well, in my dream world there'd be specialist centres out in the countryside where addicts could get full treatment, education, health care and job skills training, away from the dealers.

Naturally, no government is going to commit to that (even though there could be a strong argument that it might even work out cheaper in the long term, considering the immense drain on NHS resources that smack/crack heads create).

So, I'd suggest it would make more sense to have a treatment area in a non-residential area, preferably situated outside the main drug dealing area of Coldharbour Lane, away from preying dealers.

I haven't got a handy list of unused industrial/commercial space to hand, but I would have thought that there's enough of that around...

 

[Robinson]

QUOTE]Unfortunately, if you look around on these boards you'll see that Brady's gig room is due for demolition. Obviously the place will never be what it was, but it's an ideal central venue for bands and events provided the back room remains and it's still a pub. Since the first draft Lanbeth Unitary Development Plan talked of protecting pubs is it worth mountng any sort of campaign?

Yes - saw the other threads about Bradys. Looks like it's too late to save it now. If there was a campaign I'd write a letter - but more than that I cannot do. Guess that's often the way with perfect bars - they don't last forever. And we've still got the Windmill!

 

[John Wisehammer]

As a confirmed outsider, it would seem to me that what Mike and Trotboy / Steve say represent two sides of "reasonable"** opinion of how to deal with high drugs use areas.

In an ideal world obviously the best thing (IMuninformedO) would be for rehab clinics or hostels to be situated, like Mike says, in non-residential neighbourhoods. Why? Junkies and smackheads are people, but they are people whose behaviour generally has really negative consequences for others around them: theft, violence, general crime scumminess and paraphenalia waste. The "take them out of the drug-using environment" argument seems to make sense too.

However, I suspect the underlying theme of Steve's counterarguments are that it's all very well building the most fantastic treatment places but if they're too far away from where people already are, then truly drug-addled people won't use them, and it will make no change the problems in Brixton.

So I suppose this is where informed people (not me) that know more about junkies and crackheads would come in to enlighten us: how far will hard drug users travel (if at all)? if an area gets cleaned up to some degree (e.g. Kings X), do users just get moved on? is it possible to have hostels/treatment/centres in residential neighbourhoods without murdering the neighbourhood (Camden Town experience?)?

Anyone know? Jonesy - is this your field?

How close is the nearest non-residential area to Brixton? The industrial estate on Milkwood Road?

**i.e. not Daily Mail-esque counterproductive moronic probihition.

 

[hatboy]

Mike - it seems your block is rapidly deteriorating. I've not heard you mention the users trashing the inside of the building before. In this you have my sincere sympathy (or concern).

I think a centre for addicts is needed in Brixton however. Where exactly I'm not sure, but somewhere here. People in a state of crisis (or just totally fucked) can't even organise themselves to go one stop on the tube half the time so elsewhere wouldn't help those here.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I have to say that I agree with JWH. Both sides of this debate are reasonable. Mike's Estate does have a bad problem with crackheads and junkies, but so does the Loughborough Estate, Angell Town, Stockwell Park, Cowley Estate etc etc. There is not a night when there is peace from these anti-social drug abusers. I too have shit and other detritus on the stairs...the local Housing Office have attempted to 'design out crime' but it's a dismal failure and has made things far, far worse for the tenants, and no impact on the crack and smack heads.

 

[fanta]

Originally posted by editor
Oh, for fuck's sake...

I already live with a sharps box on my wall, dealers working outside, crackheads trashing the stairs and needles scattered outside my house, so I really don't need any lectures about NIMBY-ism: try IAIMFBY - It's Already In My Fucking Back Yard!

The simple truth is that the local Chemist providing clean needles resulted in the area in front of my block becoming a shooting gallery, which, in turn, has attracted more junkies and, latterly, crackheads.

I have never seen so many junkies openly injecting as I have in recent months and fail to see how introducing a treatment centre in a densely residential area would improve things.

As for different locations, well, in my dream world there'd be specialist centres out in the countryside where addicts could get full treatment, education, health care and job skills training, away from the dealers.

Naturally, no government is going to commit to that (even though there could be a strong argument that it might even work out cheaper in the long term, considering the immense drain on NHS resources that smack/crack heads create).

So, I'd suggest it would make more sense to have a treatment area in a non-residential area, preferably situated outside the main drug dealing area of Coldharbour Lane, away from preying dealers.

I haven't got a handy list of unused industrial/commercial space to hand, but I would have thought that there's enough of that around...

I'm not trying to lecture anyone about NIMBYism. Please bear in mind that all of us who live on CHL are as pissed off about the situation as you are.

So far Editor, you have not provided a convincing alternative to what Trotboy has suggested. You support the creation of help-centres coupled with effective programmes of treatment for drug addicts - but not on our street where they are!

Where then? Just somewhere else, anywhere but here, right?

To be quite frank, it just sounds disengenuous. To assert, as you do, that the creation of help-centres for drug addicts would actually compound the drug problem, is uncannily similar to Mr & Mrs Dailymail of suburbia warning that the asylum-seeker hostel that is to be built near them will only encourage more asylum-seekers!

Of course it is pointless to create help-centres in our street, or anywhere, without removing the dealers - ideally locked up for lengthy sentences. But the idea that help-centres for drug addicts are actually going to compound the drug problem just because they have been established where the drug addicts are (and where you and I happen to live too) is just plain silly!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Originally posted by editor
Face it: you don't give a fucking shit about the people who live on Coldharbour Lane, do you?

I might be new both to this forum and to Brixton, but surely this is well out of order, whether or not it comes from the editor, as a means of responding to a well-argued proposal?

Firstly, it risks turning a serious discussion into a flame war. Secondly, do we really need more of the sort of politics by which if a socialist says something other than "crackdown", they aren't supposed to give a damn, we can call them nice middle class people living somewhere posh who don't know or care about the ordinary people?

That's precisely the way debates on social policy have been conducted these last two decades, and where has it got us? Homeless people injecting drugs all over London (and elsewhere). Would it not be possible to give it a break, and to debate what people say on its merits?

For what it's worth, I'm a socialist too, and live on Appach Road, well away from the scene, so conceivably I don't give a shit either.

 

[hatboy]

Mike (Ed) - I really think Justin has a point here. I can really sympathise that you may be stressed about your block at the moment. But I think you should calm down abit. I hope this doesn't piss you off more. I'm not on a wind-up.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Cockpits

Orwell wrote of Franz Borkenau (I think) that he had succeeded in the difficult task of writing a book about the Spanish Civil War "without losing his temper". Without wishing to be at all sanctimonious, isn't that the most important facet of any approach to any problem, and the more desperate and dangerous the problem, the more important it is to keep our heads? (I say that as somebody with an appalling, atrocious temper.)

 

[editor]

So far Editor, you have not provided a convincing alternative to what Trotboy has suggested.

You clearly haven't been paying attention.

I've listed various reasons why I think that situating such a centre on Coldharbour Lane would be detrimental to the community - some people agree with those reasons, some don't (so are they all 'anti-asylum seeking, Daily Mail readers' too?).

And as for alternatives, perhaps you missed these:

(a) My ideal solution ("specialist centres out in the countryside where addicts could get full treatment, education, health care and job skills training, away from the dealers.!)

(b) My compromise: ("I'd suggest it would make more sense to have a treatment area in a non-residential area, preferably situated outside the main drug dealing area of Coldharbour Lane, away from preying dealers.")

(c) Endorsed the idea of providing an 'info/help shop' somewhere close to the station, offering help and advice to addicts,

Apart from suggesting a different location, why aren't my posts every bit as 'convincing' as Trotboy's 'stick it on Coldharbour Lane' line?

It's clear that there's a lot of different opinions being expressed here, but accusing someone of having a 'Daily Mail' mindset just because their opinions aren't in line with yours is both dishonest and extremely stupid.

And I apologise to Trotboy for swearing earlier, but I do get really fed up with people thinking that the residents of Coldharbour Lame are fair game for developments that they wouldn't like to see in their own street.

I'm fucking fed up with crackheads kicking in the doors of my block, junkies injecting on the lawn outside and finding needles and shit all over the little piece of green outside my flat.

I also get fed up with trite accusations of NIMBY-ism and holding opinions supposedly akin to'anti-asylum-seeking Daily Mail readers': two disgusting, downright lies guaranteed to inflame someone like me and - IMO - far worse than using a naughty word!

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Preying dealers

Is there actually any way to keep people away from dealers if they really need their drug? I mean given the lengths people are prepared to go to, and the risks they are prepared to run, to get hold of a drug, would putting a centre a few miles away - or even out in the countryside - actually make a difference insofar as that aspect is concerned? And besides, wouldn't the dealers just move to be nearer the market? Which I agree might be just the ticket as far as the Coldharbour Lane residents are concerned!

(Incidentally, it's not the swearing which bothers me, it's the "you don't care" bit. I've been a socialist for nearly twenty-five years now and it really does wear you down, the way you aren't allowed to debate your ideas without having to go through a torrent of accusations first.)

 

[editor]

If the junkies were getting treatment out in the country, I think it's far less likely that the village high street would be littered with dealers shouting, "YO! SENSI! WEED! BROWN!".

Dealers are generally lazy fuckers looking for easy money - why take the risk of becoming highly visible to the poice in an unfamiliar area when you can deal drugs in your local street with far less hassle?

And Justin: you seem to have mistaken my attack on Trotboy as some sort of attack on all socialists everywhere.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I was arguing with him solely about his comments and his opinions in this thread, and not the Socialist-whatever party it is he represents, so relax, eh?

Most of us get that kind of flack in the 'real world' too, you know....

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Originally posted by editor
If the junkies were getting treatment out in the country, I think it's far less likely that the village high street would be littered with dealers shouting, "YO! SENSI! WEED! BROWN!".

Perhaps the vocabulary would be different, but do you really think it's hard to get hold of any of these substances in little counrty towns? Nor are they that far away, and to be honest the on-costs involved in getting to the market can be more easily passed on to the customer if the number of suppliers is diminished.

 

[editor]

I see you wish to pursue this point. OK...

Yes, you can get smack in country towns and villages, but the difference is that people are far less anonymous and therefore fresh teams of dealers moving in to the area are much more likely to be spotted.

I'd imagine most treatment centres would be residential anyway, and although it's never impossible to smuggle in drugs, I'm confident that it would still be considerably harder to score smack in Little Bleckinsworth than in Brixton.

Of course, the whole point of siting a residential treatment away from urban areas is to also remove the immense temptation from dealers and fellow junkies on the streets and gave addicts a suitably relaxed, healthy and positive environment to try and escape their addiction.

After all, it was only a short while ago I was watching addicts go in and out of a central London hospital, doggedly checking themselves in for treatment only to give in to temptation and dash off down to Brixton to score.

But if you think residential treatment centres out of London are a terrible idea, fine.

What's your solution?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Originally posted by editor
But if you think residential treatment centres out of London are a terrible idea, fine.

I wasn't aware that I said they were. What I said was "would putting a centre a few miles away - or even out in the countryside - actually make a difference insofar as that aspect is concerned?"

Which I'd stand by. I mean if we can take a substance all the way from Afghanistan or Colombia and get it to Brixton through many different pairs of hands, I can't see another few miles being that insuperable an obstacle. As for centres being "residential" - does that mean people aren't allowed out? I'm not being picky, I'm just not sure what you mean. Because if they're allowed out, they'll find what they're looking for.

As far as "solutions" are concerened, I think treatment centres are important, I just don't really think location makes much difference. I'm not sure on what levels you're talking about "solutions" though, as it obviously makesa difference whether we're talking micro or macro, whether we're talking "given a free hand" or whether we're restricted to whatever we might persuade the current government to do in the current circumstances. Not trying to be difficult, just not sure of the terms here and don't want to waste your time.

 

[editor]

I'd really like it if you just offered what you believe to be the best solution to Brixton's problems instead of answering questions with more questions, a la politicians.

 

[Mr Retro]

After all, it was only a short while ago I was watching addicts go in and out of a central London hospital, doggedly checking themselves in for treatment only to give in to temptation and dash off down to Brixton to score.

Thats the problem having a treatment centre near the problem.

I believe there should be all the help in the world made as available as possible where addicts are hanging out - but trying to treat them so near temptation will result in what the Ed said above.

I also think when a person "turns themselves in" the treatment centres should be almost like a prision for the first 5-7 days or so. I know if I was in the sad desperate situation I see the junkies of Brixton in, I would want a van to pull up and lock me away for a month untill the habit is broken.

So, I'd suggest it would make more sense to have a treatment area in a non-residential area, preferably situated outside the main drug dealing area of Coldharbour Lane, away from preying dealers.

Nowhere is going to be ideal but how about the huge abandoned South London Hospital in Clapham South. A big decaying building like that is a disgrace.

 

[hatboy]

What about this:

"People in a state of crisis (or just totally fucked) can't even organise themselves to go one stop on the tube half the time so (a centre) elsewhere wouldn't help those here".

Things sound pretty grim in the Barrier at the moment Mike. I'm sorry to hear all this. Estate architecture, even with security (if it doesn't really work) doesn't help does it? Is there anything you can do with other residents to get the security holes plugged?

 

[editor]

I disagree: most smack addicts appear more than capable of getting around to do whatever they need to feed their habit.

After all, there's been the well documented cases of junkies regularly bunking the BR train from Brixton to Victoria to beg for the day and then coming back to Brixton to score.

As for the Barrier, there's not a lot we can do: smack/crackheads lurk by the entrance and hop in whenever someone's let in or ring the doors to get someone else to let them in.

Mind you, I wish I'd had a camera to hand last week when this completely spaced out crackhead was buzzing my videophone: his face was a bug-eyed picture of fired-up, coke fuelled determination that was made more weird by his insistence of looking right up to the camera!

I suspect even the most liberal, laid back resident in the world wouldn't have let that character in!

 

[pooka]

Maybees we're getting a tad polarised. Nimbyism or not, I think a lotof people would argue that the centre of Brixton is not an ideal place for a treatment centre. People need to be taken out of their usual surroundings to make a fresh break.

But access to treatment, with transport, in the centre of Brixton is another matter. It could also act as a drugs information point. And health centre for addicts.

I understand that a lot of GP's are reluctant to prescribe substitute drugs cos they don't want their waiting rooms filling up with junkies - perhaps a clinic on the premises could be included too?

Above all, I think the message is important. We're not going to put up with this stuff in the centre of town - but we're going to help people too. As someone said "Screw the dealers - help the addicts"

Alternatively, a nice spanking mobile info centre/referal point/needle exchange/clinic that could park up in town, but tour the estates too.

Whatever - I suggest we develop this thread and then send it to the people who've got £1.2m to spend by next March.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Originally posted by editor
I'd really like it if you just offered what you believe to be the best solution to Brixton's problems instead of answering questions with more questions, a la politicians.

Yes, but I don't know what the question is, do I? That was my point. Am I being asked "what can be done now, in the current situation, within current political channels and with current budgets, to help Brixton" or do I have more leeway than that? I thought I'd made that clear.

 

[newbie]

We read that shooting galleries in places like Zurich and Toronto have helped with reducing the harm users inflict on the wider community. Does anyone know whether these were sited in areas plagued by users, or away in less troubled areas?

Intuitively it seems to me that if the problem is on CHL, then that's where the solution will be located. But there must be evidence from the experiences elsewhere in the world.

 

[editor]

A reminder of some recent history:

Free, clean needles were dispensed from the chemist opposite my flat.

A clearly-marked sharps box was installed on the wall of my building.

So far, so good.

End result:

1. Junkies openly shooting up in front of a residential block, day and night.
2. Cover-offering attractive trees and bushes cut down in an attempt to get addicts to shoot up elsewhere.
3. Junkies ignoring the sharps box and scattering their needles (and associated paraphernalia) on the grass where children play
4. Junkies making the block of flats an all night 'social centre', shooting up together and using the small landscaped area as a piss and shit toilet.
5. Junkies gaining entry to the block and shooting up in the stairs/ fire escape and hassling/frightening residents.
6. Crack heads joining in with the party, trashing doors, stairs and the fire exit to the point where it has to be closed.

I'm all for the provision of free clean needles and safe shooting galleries but I'd strongly argue that first-hand experience has clearly shown that siting them in the middle of an entirely residential area causes immense grief for locals.

I find that unacceptable.

 

[Jazzz]

Free heroin prescribed the NHS administered at surgeries would do a lot to reduce the heroin problem IMO.

 

[Caspar Hauser]

Newbie, the shooting galleries in Zürich are suited in residential drug hot-spot areas. At first they were strongly opposed by the residents but when the concept started to work (e.g. brought the Junkies off the streets) that changed.
But then that places there are staffed with social workers and nurses, so the Junkies are not left on their own.

 

[Trotboy]

Mike

You list the problems in your area caused by addicts, and they are horrifying, but none of them would be symptoms of what I was suggesting.

If a centre was provided, with a 'shooting gallery', medical staff, prescribed heroin for addicts and 'social' areas, toilet facilities and security staff, then these people (And they are people - for all the problems they cause) would not need to do the things you list.

What's more, the Police would be able to do something with anyone who did cause problems. At the moment, the Police ignore these problems, because there is nothing they can do with the perpetrators, they don't have facilities to deal with junkies.

Certainly residential centres for referral can and should be elsewhere. But the first step - getting people off the streets and into an environment that makes them confront their problems and offers them an alternative - has to be made where the problem is.

Junkies won't immediately all form a line and get the help they need, and as your problems show - just providing some cosmetic answers to the symptoms is no solution. Particularly since the Chemist has been closed for at least a year now, but a Chemist can't provide anything other than free needles.

I'm not suggesting the problem be 'dumped on your doorstep' Mike - the problem clearly ALREADY IS on your doorstep. However big the broom you use, it won't solve the problem long term, to do that you have to treat the disease as well as the symptoms. Giving people jobs, homes, hope instead of despair is the only way to do that.

Steve Bush,
Lambeth Socialist Party.

 

[William of Walworth]

I have to say that that post from Steve was excellent, as an ideal to aim for at least. Am I wrong, or does it seem to square the circle between Mike's position (which I totally sympathise with, we are so lucky in Southwark!!) and Steve's ... the two "reasonable" poles which JWH and Mrs M put their finger on.

I suppose the main problem is whether the policy Steve suggests is achievable in anything like the short term?

I await more posts from others more locally informed than I ... excellent debate on a vital subject this thread.

 

[editor]

The truth is we're almost in total agreement on this, but I guess I veer towards a more pragmatic approach.

I wouldn't have a problem if a well funded, professionally run, secure medical centre was set up in Coldharbour Lane as part of a co-ordinated scheme to offer full support for addicts, from health problems to housing to job retraining/education.

Trouble is, I have a very strong suspicion that it would end up as the usual half-hearted, cash-strapped botch, making life considerably worse for residents - much like the half-baked free needles/sharps box scheme outside my flat that simply invited addicts to use the place as a shooting gallery.

And on a different note, who would be expected to fund such an expensive project? Would it be right for Lambeth's funds to be diverted from other health care concerns to fund heroin treatment centres?

 

[fanta]

Originally posted by editor

You clearly haven't been paying attention.....

Not being paying attention? Well I'm sorry you think that, I have been trying to.

This NIMBYism has clearly touched a nerve. But you know perfectly well that I am not 'dishonestly' or 'extremely stupidly' accusing you of that. For the record let me state that I do not think that you are guilty of it, I was just drawing a comparison. Happy? However, without suggesting an alternative location then that is just what YOU have been sounding like!

Yes, you have listed some reasons why you think situating such a centre on Coldharbour Lane or locally would be detrimental to the community, but they're not credible in my opinion! I personally don't see how it could get much worse as it is now!

I think it is nonsense to suggest that the establishing of a help-centre, coupled with the appropriate treatment for addicts AND the removal by the police of the dealers from the street, would compound the problem.

It would not, it would on the contrary very much alleviate it. And anyway, you appear to be changing you mind now:

'I wouldn't have a problem if a well funded, professionally run, secure medical centre was set up in Coldharbour Lane as part of a co-ordinated scheme to offer full support for addicts, from health problems to housing to job retraining/education. '

Huh? Hang on a moment - is that not excatly what Trotboy and myself are arguing for too?

I reckon the well-founded cynicism you express about any venture lacking the political will of the authorities and the financial resources (while probably being correct) is no reason not to try.

As to your question about who is to fund what would inevitably be an expensive project, I am afraid the answer will probably be people like you and I who live here! ie more local taxation!

No one likes that idea, but I don't think there is another way. I'd grumble as loud as the next person if more money was to be deducted from my pay, but if it meant funding a scheme like this then that would at least be some consolation.

 

[brixtonvilla]

my solution...

why not put some policemen on the street after dark? On foot? Seems like they're like rocking horse shit whenever I walk through there. So they could actually STOP some of the dealers, alkies & people with mental health problems before they do anything do anything dangerous/unpleasant....just a thought.