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Take Control : Drugs

Published February 19, 2023 Updated February 21, 2023

Take Control : Drug advice playing cards produced by Safer Publications, United Kingdom, 2007.

2007 United Kingdom Safer Publications UK Health Safety

This pack is one of a “Take control” series produced in 2007 by Safer Publications UK – the two others in the series cover the subjects of Sexual health and Contraception.

13 areas of drug advice and detailed information are covered: the Aces of each suit offer facts and actions relating to First Aid; the Two of each suit covers Magic mushrooms; Threes – Cannabis; Fours – Crack cocaine; Fives – Tranquilizers; Sixes – LSD; Sevens – Ecstasy; Eights – Amphetamines; Nines – Inhalants; Tens -Cocaine; Jacks – Heroin; Queens – Alcohol; Kings – Tobacco. There are 4 different jokers also offering information about Mixers, Risks, and the Recovery position. See the box

Take Control : Drug advice playing cards produced by Safer Publications, United Kingdom, 2007 Take Control : Drug advice playing cards produced by Safer Publications, United Kingdom, 2007 Take Control : Drug advice playing cards produced by Safer Publications, United Kingdom, 2007

Above: Take Control : Drug advice playing cards produced by Safer Publications, United Kingdom, 2007

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By Peter Burnett

Member since July 27, 2022

I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.

Russian Playing Cards

Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.

Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.

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