Drug Treatment & the Law

This year's Release conference took place on 22 October and has already been widely hailed as one of the best yet. With 80% of the population within 2 hours reach, Derby is England's most central city. In the heart of the city, Quad, a new contemporary Arts and Media Centre is an iconic cutting edge building that provided the ideal location for the 2009 Release annual conference.

Titled Drug Treatment & the Law and attended by a wide range of people from across the drug treatment field, from service users to GP’s, treatment providers to policy advocates, the Release conference offered delegates a chance to step away from their usual working environment and ponder some truly interesting ideas at the centre of drug treatment.  With so much development and potential for change in the law surrounding drug treatment, each speaker gave a relevant and useful update for delegates, on subjects such as naloxone, paraphernalia, the ethics and effectiveness of coerced treatment and peer-led advocacy.

Speakers Mike Murray, Mat Southwell, Jamie Bridge, Colin Wilkie-Jones and Niamh Eastwood listen intently....

With a senior official from the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) in attendance (in place of the government minister who had to cancel at the last minute), delegates were privy to a very frank update of the latest discussions taking place at the heart of government regarding the proposals contained with the Welfare Reform Bill, which had sought to make drug treatment compulsory for benefit claimants. Challenged and scrutinised by Release staff and delegates, and followed by a lively interactive panel debate, the DWP official could have been left with no doubts about the strength of feeling amongst drug treatment professionals.

Of course, none of conference would have been possible without the amazing contribution and hard work from our dedicated group of volunteers.

If you want to know more about this, or any of Release conferences, please contact us.