www.codeinefree.me.uk

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Happy birthday to Codeine free! 4 years old on 21st September 2009.

And we can say it has been the busiest year out. It kicked off with a radio appearance on BBC Radio Nottingham and Talk City. Hot on the heels of these, Dr Brian Iddon MP and Gemma Reay released their All Party Parliamentary Drugs Misuse Group (APPDMG) Report into addictions. The press fiore that surrounded CodeineFree at that time was unbelievable and quite astonishing. In the end we spoke to GM:TV who edited the interview to match a story we weren't interviewed for. The result was a very poor feature indeed.

When the APPDMG report was published, one of the things it called for was prominent box outer warnings and enhanced Patient Information Leaflet (PIL) advice. We decided that this probably wouldn't happen without a little prompting so we organised our campaign to get people to complete a standard letter and send it off to their MP's.

This was followed by a request for assistance from the Producers of Coronation Street for help with the production of one of their story lines "Joe's Addiction". They wanted to know what type and strength of tablets he may take, their effect and how his state of anxiety would build given a series of events. Whilst we do think the producers did an absolute sterling job of portraying how an addiction can take hold of somebody without them realising what was happening to them, our assistance did draw criticism from another support group describing it as "Laughable", "Inaccurate" and "Sourced by Amateurs". We reject this criticism as just about everything that happened to Joe has happened to CodeineFree visitors. Well, maybe not a psychotic David This storyline resulted in us being prominently featured in "All About Soap" magazine.

http://www.codeinefree.me.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2972

An absolute high was achieved when we exhibited at the Substance Misuse Management in General Practice (www.smmgp.org.uk) conference at Liverpool during May. To our knowledge, this is the first time an organisation like CodeineFree as ever attempted such a thing. We were exceptionally well received and there were a few shockers in store. The very first visitor to the stand informed us that he had five patients on his books who had presented with Over The Counter (OTC) dependency.

http://www.codeinefree.me.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2873

Moving forward to September, the MHRA released their new proposals for OTC sales. This caused another media storm and we eventually agreed to talk with Sky News / Channel 5. Whilst the feature was good and we received an on-screen credit, the bits about funding and CodeineFree's proposals to move forward fell on the editing room floor. As the MHRA proposals include box outer warnings and better Patient Information Leaflet detail, we are claiming success for our campaign.

http://www.codeinefree.org/campaign.php

Other high points included Sheila Kelley of the Proprietary Association of Great Britain (www.pagb.org.uk) approaching us to open a dialogue. We are hoping that our current good relations will continue as CodeineFree moves forward with it's proposals to further educate and raise awareness to this entire area of dependency. Our very own Emma aka FruitLoop was promoted to moderator alongside Jeff and Helen to further strengthen our team.

Another major change happened during may with CodeineFree moving forward to becoming a Charitable Organisation governed by a constitution. This move was necessary for CodeineFree to move forward as it is past the limits of what it can do as an informal organisation. During the next year, we are hoping to complete our funding proposal to produce our own information leaflets and educational material so that we can further get the message out there that people don't have to suffer in silence with this dependency - and complete the transition to becoming a charity.

So as we go into our fifth year with a hit counter approaching an incredible three quarters of a million hits we'd like to wish everybody the very best with their recoveries and hope to meet everybody in a chat night soon!