Cold turkey to replace methadone for addicts

Published on Saturday 9 February 2008 18:03

HEROIN addicts will be ordered to undergo "cold turkey" treatment rather than receive methadone under a Government plan to tackle Scotland's chronic drug problem.

The radical move follows recent research which found that three years after receiving methadone only 3% of addicts remained totally drug-free.

Despite the poor effectiveness of methadone, 12m a year is spent doling out the heroin substitute to 52,000 users. The wider healthcare and crime-related costs of this army of addicts is far higher.

Home Office figures suggest that a one-off investment of 100m in rehabilitation programmes would ultimately save the country 1bn.

As part of the budget deal brokered between the SNP and the Tories last week, ministers have agreed to a major rethink which will change the emphasis of drug treatment.

Ministers say methadone should still be prescribed by GPs to stabilise addicts and reduce their reliance on heroin and crack.

But they want to ensure a wider choice is on offer to addicts than at present. Ministers say they are now concerned by the "over-reliance" on methadone at the expense of other efforts.

Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing said: "The main aim of our new drugs strategy will be recovery, and abstinence can be one facet of that."

Ewing is also to order an inquiry into the spending on tackling drugs in Scotland amid evidence that there is scant knowledge as to whether the funding over recent decades has had any effect.

He said: "With many young Scots destroying their lives by shooting up heroin and other dangerous drugs, we owe it to their families and our communities to make sure our spending in tackling that is much more than a shot in the dark".

Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said she backed the new approach.

She said: "Each month that passes, the momentum of opinion on drug abuse has moved towards our position. We welcome that as we welcome the minority Government's new found emphasis on abstinence and recovery as the cornerstone of treating addicts."

Maxie Richards, of the Maxie Richards Foundation which promotes an abstinence based programme, said: "You wouldn't believe the number of rehabilitation places for addicts which have had to be closed because of a lack of funding. We have never taken the issue of recovery of drug addicts seriously at all, and that needs to change."

However, backers of methadone insist that it is also a solution, pointing out that less than half of those who go through rehabilitation programmes succeed in coming off drugs.

Bill Nelles, the general secretary of the Methadone Alliance, said recently: "For the people who do respond to methadone they should be able to access methadone for as long as it can be shown it is helping them."

ANALYSIS

Fergus Ewing, Minister for Community Safety

On Thursday, along with the First Minister, I will attend the British Irish Council Summit in Dublin. I will have discussions with ministers in other administrations about the challenges in tackling drugs misuse that we all share.

The points of agreement reached with other parties in Scotland last week demonstrate what can be achieved. Conservative leader Annabel Goldie has been particularly vocal, for example, in emphasising the importance of abstinence in treating drug users. I entirely respect that. The main aim of our new drugs strategy will be recovery, and abstinence can be one facet of that.

However, this is not, and cannot be, at the expense of measures to reduce harm. My concern is with an over-reliance on methadone. But, as a Government, we cannot second-guess clinical decisions.