Uncomfortably Numb

A new year always brings with it the desire for a better future. But as we all count the cost of Christmas, the Gypsy and Traveller communities will be enduring a chemical as well as a financial hangover. From Cornwall to Caithness, every Gypsy and Traveller family has stories to tell of lives blighted by the desire to escape from reality for a while. From addiction because of drug use, to imprisonment because of dealing it would seem that Gypsy and Traveller communities are being particularly badly affected by drugs.

In this film, Ladged No Longer, Barrie Taylor reveals how his own battle with addiction led to him becoming a drugs counsellor to help his own community. Watch it and hear how the Gypsy and Traveller community is finally beginning to speak about an issue many of us once denied existed. It is packed with advice, experience and information about the way drug addiction is affecting our communities.

If there was a community that knew all about how to handle drugs, you would think it would be New Travellers. Born out of a desire to live a different way of life, through politics, music and festivals, you would have thought New Travellers could handle their drugs. But as Chrissy Alleyn, a participant in the Travellers Times journalism training programme reveals, parts of the New Traveller community including his own family are being destroyed by a party drug and horse tranquiliser called Ketamine.