FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

27th September 2021

West Yorkshire: Take Drugs Seriously

Bereaved families and former police officers call for drugs to be legalised and regulated 

*Exclusive opportunity to visit the UK’s first Overdose Prevention Centre Ambulance.*

This is a free event open to the public happening on Tuesday 28th September, 7.00-9.30pm.

Address: St Chad’s Parish Centre, Otley Road, Headingley, LS16 5JT

Public, press, voluntary organisations and politicians are invited to hear why bereaved families and former police officers are uniting to campaign for a new approach to drugs. Through sharing their personal experiences, panel members will discuss the impact of drugs in West Yorkshire and across the UK and why they believe the legal control and regulation of drugs would better protect families.

The event will include a lineup of experts, including undercover drugs officer-turned-author Neil Woods, bereaved families, academics and harm reduction workers. The panel will explain why they are calling on the government to reform the 50-year-old Misuse of Drugs Act.

The event will also provide an exclusive opportunity to visit the UK’s first Overdose Prevention Centre ambulance. The ambulance, which operated in Glasgow for a year by activist Peter Krykant, is being brought to Leeds to raise awareness around this vital life-saving innovation.

The Overdose Prevention Service vehicle is making its first stop in Leeds

Free tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/west-yorkshire-take-drugs-seriously-tickets-167588143649

Marie Daniels – Anyone’s Child Campaigner:

“I truly believe that if recreational drugs were properly regulated and not left totally in the hands of criminals my son Daniel would still be here now – graduating from university, travelling, pursuing a career, having a family of his own.

I am calling on the government to reform our failed drug laws, because I want to help prevent the senseless waste of our children. Daniel could have been anyone’s child, but he wasn’t, he was my child and I miss him everyday.”

Neil Woods – Under-cover Police officer turned Author:

“I eventually realised that the reason organised crime was getting more brutal was down to me and people like me. Once I realised that and looked back, the ends no longer justified the means.”

Jane Slater – Campaign Manager for Anyone’s Child​:​

“Come to hear what our speakers have to say, because the drug laws can harm anyone’s child. Keeping drugs illegal isn’t keeping our children safe, it’s putting them in danger. Our voices must be heard and our politicians must listen. We need to put governments in control of the drug market, so that families are better ​protected.”  

Martin Powell – Transform Drug Policy Foundation:

“With record numbers dying from drugs in the UK, it’s time the Government opened official Overdose Prevention Centres which are proven to save lives, and get people into treatment. They are clinical spaces where people take their own drugs under supervision so they can be treated with a heroin antidote if they overdose. Despite millions of supervised injections in these centres around the world, no one has died from an overdose in one.“

ENDS:​

To arrange interviews with the speakers please contact:

Kate Elliott, kate@transformdrugs.org

Jane Slater,​ jane@transformdrugs.org    

Notes to editor

This is a public event hosted by Transform Drug Policy Foundation.

Anyone’s Child: Families for Safer Drug Control is a campaign of Transform Drug Policy Foundation. Anyone’s Child is an international network of families whose lives have been wrecked by drug prohibition and who are now campaigning to end it. The Anyone’s Child website can be found here: http://anyoneschild.org/ 

For more about Overdose Prevention Centres and how they are saving lives.

More about our campaign marking the 50th anniversary of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Read more about how the drug war harms young people.