Hooked 28: Interview with Niamh Eastwood

A special treat this week on the Hooked podcast we have an interview with Niamh Eastwood from Release. Release are a charity working to help people with legal issues arising from their substance use. And are responsible for the wonderful "Nice people use drugs" campaign that helps to raise awareness of the stigma faced by drug users (and the strange lack of this stigma faced by people in positions of political power who have previously used drugs).

Niamh is a non-practising barrister; she initially joined Release in 2002 as a legal advisor, was appointed Head of Legal Services in 2007 and Deputy Director in 2009. She is particularly interested in the issue of civil liberties and is concerned that the current trend of limiting rights impacts disproportionately on drug users. Niamh is interested in developing Release’s legal capacity with a view to becoming more involved in public law as way of challenging unacceptable practices in the arenas of health, criminal justice and education.

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Shownotes

In the interview Niamh spoke about three organisations that work within or alongside Release at their offices in London:
The International Network of People Who Use Drugs who also have an Inpud blog. Youth RISE and the International Drugs Policy Consortium.

Niamh also spoke of the legal work done with the English Collective of Prostitutes and here is some information about the Ipswich murders.

Here's some information about the Welfare Reform Bill 09/10.

You can find Release on Twitter (@release_drugs) and Facebook.

Niamh can also be mailed directly on niamh@release.org.uk, or found occaisionally tweeting on Twitter (@niamhrelease).