Drawing a Line | Mike Linnell | 20 Years of Harm Reduction
Pat O'Hare
Mike on Pat
Our sister organization in the 1980's (and Scouse v Mancs rivals) the Mersey Regional Drug Training and Information Centre (MDTIC) evolved into HIT while the North West Regional Drug Training Unit (NWRDTU), turned into Lifeline Publications. Both Pat O'Hare who worked at MDTIC and James Kay were both former bus drivers. Pat has spent the last fifteen years jetting around the world and turning harm reduction into the International Harm Reduction Association.
I remember the first time I met Mike. I didn't believe that this
elegant, handsome well dressed bloke standing in front of me could
possibly have been responsible for that load of - sorry I am getting
carried away - brilliance is of course what I was going to write.
Unfortunately, as a socio-economically deprived child from Bootle, I
didn't read comics as a kid because my mum and dad couldn't buy them
for us. I now suffer from a kind of comic illiteracy. I never know which
bubble you read first. But everyone tells me they were great and I
believe them. I know that they were effective harm reduction and were
pioneering in speaking to people in a way that would attract them and
keep their attention and be credible.
They also had an impact outside the UK. Last month I was at the
soon to open heroin trial in Vancouver and there on the wall was a
'Granpa Smackhead Jones' poster. I think of Mike Linnell also for other
things. I think of him as one of the most genuine, 'ego-less' people in
the field; for his incredible passion to do something to change society's
view of drug users and the way they are treated; for unbelievably
clever, witty and incisive presentations at harm reduction conferences. I
remember him at the Chiang Mai conference Gala Dinner badgering the
organisers, successfully, to do some kind of collection to help Thai Drug
Users who were being killed by their own government and then being
one of the leaders in getting Paisan and Chockchai and other colleagues
over to the UK to protest about the killings in Thailand.
Well done, Mike, you are a credit to our field. One thing I know for
sure...I will never be able to tell a story as funny, scary and unbelievable
as the one you told me in Jersey in 2000. 