Revisiting this post from the Archives and I am still none the wiser as to why there is no TV campaign welcoming Cannabis or Class A Drug users to “come over to the healthy side of life” as there is for tobacco addicts. There are hundreds of Addiction Recovery charities in the UK so one imagines that, by now, they will have seen the shiny TV adverts encouraging smokers to get help to quit – could none of them have created one for Drug addiction?
I imagine that if a drug user, possibly watching TV at some point (no one does drugs 24/7) and saw an advert suggesting that s/he gets on the “recovery trail” and contacts a telephone number on screen from where further details of where the road to recovery might begin – perhaps they might pick up the ‘phone, who knows? Perhaps if they saw the bright, happy people, playing football with their children or showing resilience in the face of temptation (like the Quit ads show for smokers) – they just might be influenced. But there are no such adverts and I still don’t understand why. No wonder drug users consider that the road to recovery is a long, long way away – if they ever make it at all.
Ex-Smokers don’t refer to themselves as “Recovering Smokers”
Marion says
Eileen,
Superb blog post and shows the priorities of support.
You should be advising the government on their policy