Sara McGrail

Monkey was produced from a drug service in Greater Manchester by Ian Smith with a team of service users and colleagues. Some editions are a polemical tour de force and others simply polemical, but its never boring. It was aimed at delivering treatment and harm reduction advice alongside user self organisation and opening up a world of policy - locally and nationally - to street drug users. When Monkey first came out people either loved it or hated it. Mainly drug users loved it and DATs hated it. You can see why. Some people felt it was too focussed on harm reduction, others that it stirred up too much unrest among the in treatment population. Although some of the pieces are now very out of date even these can be interesting - particularly for an anorak like me - because they show us how far we've come over the past few years. Sadly some of this 'movement' seems just a slight sideways shift in position out of the shade and into the warm sunshine of government funding. There have however been undeniable advances. Except in Scotland and Northern Ireland where I understand the shame that is treatment rationing still prevails, the days of long waiting lists and poor access to treatment that so taxed Ian and his colleagues seem to be passed. whether we've made quite as much progress in getting away from punitive discriminatory treatment service practices and an over reliance on the criminal justice system is for you to judge for yourself. The cover's are the links, click to read, option-click on a mac or right-mouse-click on a PC to save.

PLEASE NOTE: MONKEY IS GRITTY AND TRUE TO LIFE BUT SOME READERS MAY BE OFFENDED BY ITS FRANK REFERENCES AND USE OF STRONG LANGUAGE.


Monkey Edition 1 - October 1999 - In which the Monkey casts his eye over those in control of our drug policies and strategies and shoots them a great gobbet of mancunian charm straight in the eye. Also featuring the Monkey's own particular take on supervised consumption, the then new, but now old, clinical guidelines and the revolving door - a piece that those currently espousing a return to abstinence focussed services regardless of choice or risk, would do well to take a look at.


Monkey Edition 2 - February 2000 - In which the Monkey asks "Methadone - How Long Should You Be On It?" and has a poke about in user organisation.


Monkey Edition 3 - June 2000 - Our intrepid simian chum heralds the range of new criminal justice measures including DTTO's, mandatory drug testing and drug abstinence orders as the op[ening salvos in a war on drug users rather than drugs. Interestingly the Monkey says: "Under the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Bill payment of benefits will be linked to compliance with community sentences. Whether the probation service will play along with this one is an unknown, but its another unpleasant US import from the 'war on drug users'. Course if you're working, this won't apply. Another piece of discrimination against unemployed people. Watch this space is all we can say." Some crazy psychic Monke6y maybe who went on to look at the explosion in profits for urine testing companies if all the government's new plans were to come to fruition ...


Monkey Edition 4 - November 2000 - Where Noam Chomski lends strength to the Monkey's claims that the war on drugs is actually a war on drug users and on the working class. The Monkey indulges in some statistical wizardry and tells us that if NTORs was right about levels of criminal activity something like 37 million offences committed by drug users were going unreported every year. Oh and Anne Widdecombe gets a bit of a kicking for her calls for a zero tolerance for cannabis smokers.


Monkey Edition 5 - April 2001 - Wherein the Monkey ponders New Labour's love of bodily fluids and the Royal College of Psychiatrists apparent as yet unfulfilled pledge to campaign to reduce the stigma of addiction and gives a cautious welcome to the new kid on the block - The National Treatment Agency: "...as things stand at the moment, it looks as though this agency will have the power to make sure that the new money that's coming down for treatment will actually end up being spent on treatment. It also looks as though they will set minimum standards for treatment and that they will have the power to make poor services buck up or f-ck off..." However Monkey thinks its also a bit of a job creation scheme - "Suited pigs are already jostling around the feeder rim to get their snouts in. Our readers may be unemployed but they make sure plenty of other people are in work."


Monkey Edition 6 - July 2001 - In which the Monkey mourns the passing of the czar and bemoans the lack of treatment in our prisons. The Monkey also welcomes a new member to the team - Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays


Monkey Edition 7 - January 2002 - In which our Monkey weakens and publishes service user poetry - no wonder this was the last but one edition! Test on arrest is in the news and the monkey wonders aloud it it'll be long before its nationwide and says: " WE HOPE THEY'RE PLANNING MORE NICKS, THEY'LL CERTAINLY NEED THEM." Quite


*with kind permission of Lewis Smith and Tony Baines

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