Stubbornly glamorous cocaine lures us into addiction | Drugs

MArtha Gill's article on the devastating effects of increased cocaine use and purity raises important questions and provides data showing that our thinking about the why and how of the drug's use and treatment is outdated (“Britons are dying in a blizzard of Cheap Cocaine. Why is so little being done to save them?” It's strange, however, that the article doesn't mention the word “addiction,” even though it asks why rates of use among Gen-X users in their 40s and 50s continue are so high.

Cocaine remains a stubbornly glamorous and seductive drug, and for many people its highly addictive properties are obviously hidden. Many are the “casual” or “occasional” users who participate every weekend for years, claiming they can stop at any time, without realizing that they haven't done so yet and won't do so any time soon .
George Prowse
Cranbrook, Kent

Doctors are right to protest

On “Stop punishing doctors who take part in climate protests, regulator says”: GMC says trust in doctors can be at risk if they don’t follow the law. However, this law to suppress protests was only recently introduced by the last government and must be repealed. I fear that by prosecuting doctors who follow their conscience, the GMC itself risks bringing the medical profession into disrepute. If this law had been passed last century, women might still not have the right to vote!
Dr. Els van Ooijen
Bristol

Get Barnsley back to work

Richard Partington's report on Barnsley did not specifically mention obesity (“The disease trap: how Barnsley tried to fight back against unemployment”). However, as 38% of Barnsley's population is obese, we could share ideas from the EU-funded work we have carried out with obese and overweight unemployed people in former mining areas in Kent and northern France, using food production to raise awareness and the Increase engagement, reduce weight, increase self-esteem and improve employability through new skills and work experience.

Working with local authorities and voluntary organizations, we have implemented a model to reduce unemployment and obesity. More than 6,000 participants benefited from the activities offered and increased their well-being, self-confidence and self-motivation. They became less socially isolated and more engaged in their local communities; 61% lost weight and 79% gained a step on the career ladder. We have also developed a practical guide for employers to better support job seekers. This raised awareness of the prejudice and discrimination that overweight or obese people often face in hiring processes and in the workplace.
Christine Hancock, Director, C3 Collaborating for Health
London NW1

Special needs is not an illness

Sonia Sodha rightly describes a shameful situation in which many parents do not receive adequate education for their children (“What kind of society provides support for children with special learning needs?”). Many more parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are now being forced to demand statutory education, health and care (EHC) plans that include diagnosis and prescription.

However, an unmet educational need is not a disease that requires “treatment.” The child does not have any learning difficulties. Special educational needs arise when children are expected to learn inappropriate things in inappropriate ways. SEN is about the curriculum – what children should learn and how they should learn it.

Comprehensive schools have become academies modeled on neoliberal free market competition. The central government largely controls what children learn and, to some extent, how they learn it. For example, children need to be taught to read using phonics. Local authorities have little power to change the system, innovate or develop imaginative provision in the communities in which children live, such as specialist departments in mainstream schools or specialist support and advice to enable children with special educational needs to access the curriculum . More and more EHC plans that steadily increase the number of children in special schools, when numbers were previously falling, are an impossible, expensive and inadequate response to the needs of the vast majority of children with special educational needs.
Dr. Robin Richmond
Bromyard, Herefordshire

Compassion in death

In Women of WestminsterIn Rachel Reeves' book about the MPs who changed politics, she tells how Nancy Astor introduced the first private member's bill sponsored by a female MP in 1923. It banned the sale of alcohol to children under 18. The law remains in effect today, although there was significant opposition at the time that the bill would prove to be a “slippery slope” toward a ban.

Over a century later, the same flawed argument is being used to prevent legal reform that would also reduce major harm and give people a choice about how much suffering they endure at the end of their lives (“The Dangers of Euthanasia”).

Rep. Kim Leadbeater follows Astor's lead and introduces a private member's bill that is evidence-based and compassionate; This presents MPs with a long overdue opportunity to discuss how we die in this country. MPs must support this bill on November 29th for detailed consideration.
Sarah WoottonManaging Director, Dignity in Dying and Compassion in Dying, London W1

Kate Bush belongs to all of us

I'm a Kate Bush fan (“Babooshkas rejoice! Kate Bush is every woman's teenage soul – that's why men don't understand her”). I am also a man. I'm friends with over half a dozen avid Kate Bush fans. They are all men too. I was first introduced to Bush's music in 1978 by my father, who was and still is a fan. He is also a man.

Many of Bush's songs are specifically and sensitively about men (This Woman's Work, Pi, Cloudbusting). Others (Babooshka, Deeper Understanding, Running Up That Hill) deal with the feelings of women and men. Most of their musical collaborators (Peter Gabriel, Elton John) were men. She grew up with brothers. She gets men, and therefore men get her.

Barbara Ellen provides no evidence that men cannot understand Bush's songs or music, aside from commenting on sexism in the music industry. The only man or woman who doesn't understand her is someone who hasn't listened.
Milton gold ring
Isle of Skye

When they played the Wuthering Heights video barter transaction I remember looking at my brother all those years ago to see if he, too, had been changed by this strange novelty on the screen. By the end of the song, I had already pledged my 13-year-old soul and all my musical loyalty to Kate. She could do no wrong. I was aware that she was so quirky that I should probably be embarrassed, but then again, she lives in a different world where emotions are stronger and vital to daily life.

That's why I totally agree with you that Kate stole the souls of teenagers and I never wanted mine back. She also seems to be the gentlest of people, who has somehow awakened a fury of talent and emotion within her.

Although she's obviously my soulmate, not yours.
Heather Button
Shrewsbury