Say Why To Drugs

A live episode! In front of a lovely crowd at the awesome Latitude Festival, back in July 2021. Suzi Gage headed to Suffolk and was joined by previous SWTD guest Fiona Spargo-Mabbs. Their discussion covered all aspects of how to talk with your family about drugs - what age should discussions happen? How do teens want these conversations to happen? How honest should parents be about their experience, or lack of it, with drugs?Fiona Spargo-Mabbs is the founder of the DSM Foundation, and has recently published a fantastic and powerful book called I Wish I'd Known, about her son Dan's death after taking MDMA, and all the things she wishes she - and Dan - had been aware of, in terms of evidence-based information about substances, why teenagers behave the ways that they do, along with advice about how to navigate conversations.https://www.dsmfoundation.org.uk/more-information-for-parents/i-wish-id-known-fionas-book/And here is the previous episode she appeared on:https://play.acast.com/s/saywhytodrugs/drugeducation-withthedsmfoundation

There have been many reports about drink spiking in recent weeks and months. Suzi is joined by Dr Lata Gautam from Anglia Ruskin University to talk about what we mean by drink spiking, what substances are thought to be used, and what a person might experience if their drink is spiked. Lata also describes some of her work exploring what people understand about spiking, and what can be done to try and prevent it from occurring.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-58994755https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqLAAtWw3TQhttps://theconversation.com/drink-spiking-why-so-little-is-still-known-about-this-horrifying-trend-170421

Say Why to Drugs is back, as Suzi emerges bleary eyed from the first year of being a mum, what better time to talk about alcohol use and motherhood? Well, it's even better than that as it's Baby Week AND alcohol awareness week from 15th November. Suzi is joined by Abi Rose and Leila Goodman to talk about alcohol use in mums, the evidence and our own experiences. Why it might be appealing, what the risks are, why it's hard to do research in this area. As mentioned in the podcast, on 18th Abi is running an interactive workshop, and you can sign up for it here:https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/why-women-drink-tickets-186057381637Here are some other links that might be useful too:https://www.lullabytrust.org.ukhttps://alcoholchange.org.ukhttps://www.birthtraumaassociation.org.uk

A live episode recorded earlier in the year in London at Vault Festival, in association with Child.org. Suzi speaks to Alex Aldridge. Alex is a Phd student at Royal Holloway, researching sex, drugs and sexual ethics. The conversation touches on various aspects around drug use during or around sex, including chemsex, issues of consent, and in particular around how women use drugs with sex, an often overlooked area of research.

In this episode Suzi talks to James Nicholls, the CEO of an organisation called Transform, who are a think-tank working in drug policy reform. The conversation covers what is meant by various different types of drug policy, from regulation to decriminalisation to legalisation, as well as discussing what evidence-based drug policy might look like, both in terms of cannabis and stimulants, both of which have been the subject of publications by Transform. This is a new topic for Say Why to Drugs to cover, so if you have thoughts or questions please get in touch!

In this episode Suzi speaks to the Secret Drug Addict - a twitter and instagram user who VICE called 'twitter's most helpful anonymous account'. SDA is incredibly open in this conversation, talking about when he first started using drugs, how they impacted on his life, relationships and work, and what led him to seek help.He also talks about his work with footballer Neville Southall, promoting good causes and charities on twitter, and his own Secret Drug Addict account on twitter and instagram.A few trigger warnings for this episode, the conversation as you might imagine covers drug use and contains swearing, it also covers topics including psychosis and witnessing someone die after taking drugs.

In this episode Dr Suzi Gage is joined by Fiona Spargo-Mabbs and Sarah Birkett from the DSM Foundation. Fiona and her husband set up the foundation after their son Dan died after taking MDMA. Fiona talks a bit about this, but you can read more on the DSM Foundation's website here http://dsmfoundation.org.uk/dans-story/.Within this episode, Suzi chats with Fiona and Sarah about the foundation and the work that it does, as well as the evidence around what works, and what doesn't, in terms of drug education. The foundation's work includes providing material and training to schools, working directly with young people who can be ambassadors to their peers, and even has been involved with creating a verbatim play based on the testimony of Dan's family and friends in the weeks and months after his death.Below are some useful links that Fiona has shared with me, some of which are discussed in the episode.Drugfam  https://www.drugfam.co.uk/ and helpline 0300 8883853Adfam https://adfam.org.uk/Frank parents' page https://www.talktofrank.com/get-help/worried-about-a-childAlcohol Education Trust parents' page https://alcoholeducationtrust.org/parent-area/Young Minds parents' page https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/for-parents/ and helpline for parents 0808 8025544Teen Tips https://www.teentips.co.uk/ Festivalsafe https://www.festivalsafe.com/ And then additional sites we also refer young people to - Drugscience https://drugscience.org.uk/Drugsand.me https://www.drugsand.me/en/The Mix https://www.themix.org.uk/

This episode was recorded live at the Say Why to Drugs book launch at Foyles bookshop, in Bristol, on 24th January 2020. Suzi is in conversation with James Nicholls, the CEO of Transform.Some links:My website (for news and events info): https://suzigage.co.uk/events-and-talks/Amazon link to buy the book (other bookshops are available): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Say-Why-Drugs-Everything-About/dp/1473686229