The toll of drugs on Bradford’s community has been laid bare by those with first-hand experience.

In many ways, it was the act of writing lists that brought Vicki Beere to believe the UK’s drug laws and policies need to be braver.

Her career started by picking up vulnerable men and women who had struggled with drugs upon release from prison.

“We had a massive waiting list, of about 300 people,” said Vicki, CEO of Keighley-based drug and alcohol charity, Project 6.

“Every Friday my job was to go through and reassess the waiting list. The only people who ever came off that waiting list were people that had died.”

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Flowers representing the lives of people who died after taking drugs in 2020Flowers representing the lives of people who died after taking drugs in 2020 (Image: Newsquest)Vicki would later go on to write a list of people lost to heroin overdoses after a conversation with a former colleague.

In a matter of minutes, she had written down the names of 30 people who had tried to change their lives - but something wasn’t working.

“The vast majority were from preventable overdose deaths,” Vicki said. 
“People had died needlessly of an overdose coming out of prison in the fifth largest economy in the world.”

Last year, the organisation helped around 9,500 people across Bradford, Keighley, Doncaster, and Sheffield with heroin addiction.

Inside the UK’s first unsanctioned Overdose Prevention Centre

Over in Manningham, Dr Mohammed Qasim is busy delving into the lives of South Asian drug dealers and users of heroin.

Dr Qasim spent four years following a group of young, Bradford-based men engaged in criminal activities.

“My research spans back over the last 15 years,” said the author of ‘Young, Muslim and Criminal' in a video shown to the audience.

“There was a time when Bradford was the capital of heroin. Some have even gone to say over 1,000 ounces [equivalent to 28.3kg] of heroin is sold every day.

“When you have that much drugs entering the community and young men trying to supply drugs, the problem eventually drifts a different direction. Your customers are becoming Muslims, are from the same community.

 “I found nothing was known. Nobody wanted to be known in the community as a heroin user. There was shame. If some of them have addictions with heroin and crack we need to support them.

“Nobody wants to wake up in the morning and say I want to become a heroin addict. Something has happened. These are young people who are just like any other young person, they had aspirations in life, they wanted to be successful.

“They don’t have an opportunity to try and break out of poverty and find jobs because there’s racism and other issues. One way of becoming rich is ‘let’s sell heroin’.”

It is these experiences which formed a conversation on drugs at Fountains Church on Thursday.

Held by Anyone's Child, a panel of five people shared why they’d like to see the Government take legal control and regulation of the drug market.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: One of the Glasgow Overdose Prevention Service's unsanctioned ambulances One of the Glasgow Overdose Prevention Service's unsanctioned ambulances (Image: Newsquest)

It costs around £50,000 to send someone away to prison for supplying heroin.

This is money that panellists believe should be funnelled into safe drug-taking spaces, medical prescriptions of heroin, dosage recommendations and ingredients lists on drugs, and wider support within the system.

It comes as the Scottish government moves towards treating and supporting those found in possession of drugs, instead of criminalisation and exclusion. 

“It takes the entire drug market away from organised crime,” said JS Rafaeli, author of three widely acclaimed books on drugs and racism.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Writer JS Rafaeli inside the Glasgow Overdose Prevention Service ambulance Writer JS Rafaeli inside the Glasgow Overdose Prevention Service ambulance (Image: Newsquest)

“If you add up all criminal activity, and multiply it by five, you will touch the money that comes from the drug market. Making drugs illegal is the greatest gift to organised crime in the history of the world. At one stroke you take all that power, all that money, all that ability to inflict pain and terror on people, away from criminals.”

One of the panellists was behind a successful trial in Middlesbrough which supplied two daily doses of medical-grade heroin - also called diamorphine - to 10 registered patients.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: Pictured, three of the panellists Anne-Marie Cockburn, Vicki Beere and Daniel Ahmed Pictured, three of the panellists Anne-Marie Cockburn, Vicki Beere and Daniel Ahmed (Image: Newsquest)

Patients attended a clinic once or twice a day, and used their prescriptions on site, under medical supervision.

By the end of the trial, clinical director of Cranstoun Daniel Ahmed said heroin users reported an improvement in their quality of life, relationships, and health. 

“Everybody measured as clinically depressed at the start of the programme,” he said.

“At the end they measured as above average for the general population.

“We saw everybody level up in terms of housing.

“We had a group of people who had really struggled to connect with other human beings. We shared Christmas day, Easter Sunday together. We had conversations that were human and real, for those guys that was the intervention, the more I reflect.”