Breath of fresh air

Earlier this month a group of over 40 Imams, community leaders and local councillors met in Ilford to discuss the issue of drug abuse in the Muslim and Asian communities. The event celebrates a year anniversary for the 'Joining the loop' partnership, set up by Drugsline director, Aryeh Sufrin and local Imam, Haroon Patel. The purpose of the event being to share experiences and generate better awareness in local leaders, so that they'll be in a stronger position to support members of their communities who are battling with substance misuse issue's. The service offers drugs information, crisis support and counselling, provided by 35 volunteers in Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Hebrew and Yiddish, all made possible by a council grant.

It's fantastic to see this kind of event happening in Britain. Substance misuser's are generally in an excluded and stigmatised minority in this Country, even more so in Muslim and Asian circles, where addiction is considered a taboo subject. This is a viewpoint that the partnership is tackling head on. Drugsline director and local Rabbi Aryeh Sufrin commented,

"There are no boundaries to those who can find themselves struggling with
addiction. We need everyone to reach out and spread the message in their
communities to let them know that these services exist.
Drugsline has over 15 years experience of dealing with drugs and alcohol addiction issues and now our expertise is available to those who otherwise would have little or no appropriate support."

I wonder what it would take to set an event up like this in South Wales. This is the kind of action we need if we’re going to tackle substance misuse successfully. Hopefully with precedents like this being set, the rest of the Country will soon follow suit and actually pull together to get the results I think we all want. The inertia in this area is demoralising for everyone, let’s all do something about it.

If you'd like more information on Drugsline you can contact them on http://www.drugsline.org/ or call 020 8554 3220.