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TRANQUILLISER PROBLEMS?
Tranx (Oldham) Support Group
Founder: Barry Haslam
Involuntary tranquilliser addiction causes untold suffering for addicts and their families.
Tranx (Oldham) is a local support group run by ex- and partially withdrawn addicts who have experienced all symptoms of benzodiazepine and other psychiatric drugs, eg Ativan, Valium, Librium, Mogadon, Zopiclone, Seroxat etc.
They know and understand their side-effects.
If you, or anyone you know, needs advice, the group meets at:
Rock Street Resource Centre, Oldham
on Mondays from 10:45am - 12:45pm
If you are unable to make the group meetings,
contact one of the people listed below
on a one-to-one basis for advice:
Barry Haslam: .... 01457 876355
Mike: .... 0161 678 9759
Email Barry Haslam
MP takes drug fight to the top
Oldham Evening Chronicle
Monday, July 23 2001
by Janice Barker
Campaigners against the use of benzodiazepine drugs are taking their case to the top.
They briefed Oldham East and Saddleworth MP Phil Woolas before he wrote to new Home Secretary David Blunkett.
Mr Woolas is hoping to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Mr Blunkett, at which he will also ask him to meet with victims of addiction to the prescribed drugs.
Campaigners, including Mr Barry Haslam, of Uppermill, who is disabled after addiction to Ativan, hope to persuade the Government to class benzodiazepines alongside the most dangerous class A drugs, such as heroin and cocaine.
Mr Woolas said: "We are also arranging a series of public hearings around the country, the first is in Manchester in November.
"Manchester has the highest level of prescribing benzodiazepines than any health authority in the country.
"Oldham's was historically high, but has come down because of the campaign."
Last year, Mr Haslam and Mr Woolas helped to organise the first international conference on addiction to benzodiazepines in London.
Now a second one is planned for this year over the toxicity of the drug.
Mr Haslam, a member of the Oldham Tranx group which meets regularly at Coldhurst Community Centre, said the makers of the recent BBC TV programme "Panorama", which looked at the cost of over-prescription and addiction to the drugs, are considering making a second programme.
He added: "We are keeping up the pressure and becoming more proactive. And more and more MPs are becoming involved and tabling written questions about the drugs."
Damaged by drug relation of sheep dip?
Victims' fears not dismissed by professor
who is leader in the field
Oldham Evening Chronicle, Thursday, May 17, 2001
by Janice Barker
A SADDLEWORTH man who suffered lasting damage from a tranquilliser addiction, believes the drugs contain neuro-toxic poisons found in sheep dip or cleaning fluids.
Mr Barry Haslam has called for a public inquiry and for benzopdiazepines which are prescribed by family doctors, to be recategorised as Class A drugs, alongside heroin and cocaine. He says his research shows they were devised by a chemist who first worked on textile dyes. And the symptoms suffered by people addicted to benzodiazepines are strikingly similar to those in people exposed to organic solvents and organo-phosphates, he says.
Professor
Mr Haslam has written to Professor Heather Ashton, who heads the School of Neurosciences at Newcastle University with his theory. The professor, who is a contributor to a textbook on adverse drug reactions and a recognised expert in the field, says that suspicions have certainly been raised.
She told him: "Organic solvents, as well as organo-phosphates, are well known to be capable of causing brain damage. The fact that Librium is chemically related to some dyes, and also insecticides, does not mean that it causes the same damage, but I agree that it raises suspicions."
Mr Haslam, from School Street, Uppermill, was addicted to another tranquilliser, Ativan for ten years, and suffered brain and central nervous system damage after he weaned himself off the drug. He has since campaigned tirelessly for better treatment for involuntary addicts, and has researched the drugs widely.
Sedative
He discovered that a chemist, Leo Sternbach who worked for the drug-company which launched Librium in 1960, had previously studied potential dyes. Sternbach went back to his original research before discovering the benzodiazepine compound used in Librium, which was produced for its sedative, but non hypnotic, effects.
Mr Haslam then found that organic solvents are also used in the production of textiles and dyes as well as pharmaceuticals. He now plans to ask a friend who is a chemist working in the textile industry to help him with more research. He said: "I may be oversimplifying the matter but to me the link is blatantly obvious and I knew I was on the right lines.
Former Oldham addict features in BBC probe
Oldham Evening Chronicle, Thursday, May 10, 2001
by Janice Barker
An Oldham woman will describe the hell of tranquilliser addiction in a high-profile television programme on Sunday.
And Oldham campaigner Barry Haslam has been helping researchers at "Panorama", the BBC's flagship investigative programme, to look at the damage benzodiazepines can cause to those addicted to them.
Suzanne, a 21-year-old mother of two, was interviewed at her Springhead home by "Panorama" journalists.
She has already described, in an Oldham Chronicle interview, how she was prescribed tranquillisers when she was only 15, and became addicted. Her partner left her after three years when she became a zombie who could not care for her first child.
However, with help from her mother, she has weaned herself off benzodiazepines, and now has a second child and an independent life.
Suzanne is angry at the ease with which she was prescribed such addictive drugs for so long, and said: "The only reason I agreed to appear is to help other people who may not know what is happening to them. The programme must warn people before it is too late for them to get help for their addiction."
The BBC-1 programme highlights how, 13 years ago, the Government warned GPs not to prescribe benzodiazepine tranquillisers – including Valium and Mogadon – for more than four weeks, because of possible dangers.
"Panorama" will investigate an apparent boom in the tranquilliser trade, questioning why, despite the strict guidelines on their issue, people are still prescribed them long-term.
A spokesman for the Royal College of GPs tells the programme: "It's potentially a million people on drugs which, maybe, only a tiny percentage of them need to be on, and that's not good for this country."
Mr Haslam, from Uppermill, who has been disabled after addiction to tranquillisers, said: "I really hope this makes people in government sit up and listen. Addiction has been going on for 40 years."
"Panorama" also tells the story of the millionaire businessman who, following the collapse of his business interests during a nine-year Mogadon addiction, has spent the past seven years investigating the drug, uncovering some remarkable revelations.
Mr Ian Caldwell, from Perthshire, is now the only person taking legal action against drug manufacturers Roche Products, after a mass civil action by users collapsed in 1991.
Later this year he goes to Scotland's highest court, the Court of Session, in Edinburgh, to fight an attempt by Roche to have the case struck out.
Nightmare addiction cost Barry 10 years of his life
The Oldham Chronicle, 14 May 1998
Barry Haslam lost a decade of his life because of a destructive addiction to tranquillisers. For 10 dark years, he was prescribed a benzodiazepine tranquilliser that is now considered so harmful it is not given to new patients for longer than two weeks.
But Barry, who was left brain-damaged by the addiction, is now fighting back to ensure nobody has to go through the same experience again.
The father of two, with the help of fellow addicts, has compiled a dossier about benzodiazepines, which his local MP Phil Woolas has handed over to a Commons Select Committee on Health.
And Barry now hopes it will spur the Government into action to outlaw the tranquillisers, which kill more people each year than heroin, ecstasy and cocaine combined.
The 54-year-old, said: "It would be brilliant if we finally got the full recognition about what these drugs have done to us. And maybe then the medical profession will put their hands up and admit the part they have played in ruining so many lives."
Barry was first prescribed benzodiazepines after suffering a nervous breakdown – but this only turned out to be the start of his 10-year-long nightmare.
During his addiction, he suffered violent mood swings and memory loss so severe that he does not even remember his children growing up.
His dossier of facts and figures, which took several months to compile, is taken from dozens of medical studies about tranquillisers.
Scandal
