Work -In-Progress - Boots Camp

Some background information on the project from Billy and Bruce...

The idea for this project came from working closely with the library substance and alcohol mis-use group. One of the talking points has been about the way some pharmacists treat Methadone users, as well as the high supervised dispensing charges and distribution of "Methadone" in relation to the amount of prescribed users.

We did our research and the most accurate and up to date information can be found in the Drugs Misuse Statistics Scotland 2009;

Prescribed users per 1000 population

Tayside = 46

Scotland = 96

That's nearly 10% of Scotland that are prescribed Methadone on a daily basis...

Bruce and I were stewarding at a football match earlier this year, we looked at the size of the crowd ( about 5,500) and started to envisage the amount of Methadone users in Dundee. That really put it into perspective for us.

Then we noticed that in some areas pharmacies are opening several stores just in one street. Take Albert Street in the Stobswell area, we noted Boots have two pharmacies within a few hundred metres of each other.

We started to think about the daily charges x 5,500. Thats a lot of money being made on a daily basis. The pharmacies charge extra for dispensing as well as the actual cost of the medicine.

Unsupervised between £1.75 - £2.65 per day

Supervised between £3.10 - £4.06 per day

We looked at both the pro's and con's of the dispensing service and the idea of coming up with an alternative service to rival its sillyness was born...... which began as a street performance and is now being edited into a video.

It will be premiered at the Visual Research Centre (downstairs at DCA) as part of the Nine Trades of Dundee Final Gathering on Saturday 17 July. We hope you will come and see it, the event is on from 10.30- 17.30.