This blog was written by Anyone's Child coordinator, Mary. August 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day, a time to remember those who have died by drug overdose and raise awareness about overdose prevention and drug policy. This year, the IOAD 2023 theme is Recognizing those people who go unseen. It is a call to [...]
This blog is adapted from a speech given at the ‘Women in Law Enforcement’ civil society side event organised by Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), at the 66th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). Debbie is a member of LEAP a group of Police, undercover operatives, intelligence service, military and a [...]
This blog is adapted from a speech given at the ‘Women in Law Enforcement’ civil society side event organised by Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), at the 66th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). Julia is a new member of LEAP a group of Police, undercover operatives, intelligence service, military and [...]
Anne-Marie's journey, a mother who lost her daughter to an ecstasy overdose Photos: Nigel Brunsdon. Originally published in the magazine Cáñamo. This blog was originally written by Núria Calzada and published in the magazine Cáñamo. The original can be read - in Spanish - here. We spoke to Anne-Marie Cockburn just days [...]
Hilary at the Anyone's Child lobby of Parliament 2022 It’s been 4 years since my son Ben died from a heroin overdose. I would like to say the grief has lessened and I have come to some kind of peace and acceptance, but the truth is I haven’t found any peace. The [...]
Photographs of lost loved ones lay next to forget-me-not flowers. As a new day dawned on prohibition Britain, activists across the country prepared to join the Anyone's Child campaign for their annual lobby of Parliament. This year’s lobby marked the conclusion of the 50-year anniversary of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 [...]
Almost a century of evidence demonstrates that punitive, enforcement-led approaches to drugs have failed everywhere they have been tried. Prohibition and criminalisation were supposed to eradicate drug markets, deter people from using drugs, prevent harm and protect people - but they have done the opposite of that. Today, despite ballooning drug enforcement budgets, expanding drug [...]
All grief is isolating. We cannot help but feel that we are alone in the pain and the sadness of our loss. But in many ways I have been fortunate because I have been very well supported by a partner, close friends and family who have been extraordinarily understanding, who have reached out to [...]
This blog was written by Brian, a member of the Anyone's Child Family Network. In my previous blog post, I talked about the shame associated with drug taking: how that shame is at least partly a consequence of the criminalization of the use of drugs, how that shame leads to isolation, and how that isolation [...]
This blog was written by Anyone's Child campaigner Brian, whose son, Tom, died three days after his 37th birthday. This blog is the first of a series of reflections about my son’s death and the circumstances in which it took place. When my beloved son died in April 2020, it was in the middle [...]
