Yet today a letter from Phil Barker and Poppy Buchanan-Barker, published today really got up my nose. Their views are from the school of thought where depressed people should pull themselves together and schizophrenics should stop being weird. Whilst 'disease' is a misused term for addicts they certainly fall in to the categoty of 'mentally ill'. Amy Winehouse is dead, her fame irrelevant, countless unknown and poverty stricken individuals are suffering and dieing as we speak. The idea that any affliction that leads to death is in anyway self diminishing is the view of ignorance or idiocy. Blaming addicts for being ill is as accurate as blaming a car crash victim for driving, or even being a passenger. To send such a brutal letter at such a sensitive time is akin to blaming young Labour party members for taking a holidasy at Utoya Island. I have vast experience in this area and have lost many loved ones to self medication of mental illnesses the convential routes have no answer for.
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