Sixteen people a day given pills to fight booze addiction

Published on Tuesday 29 September 2009 10:23

SIXTEEN people a day are being prescribed medication in the Lothians to beat their alcohol addiction.

Prescriptions of two booze fighting drugs have rocketed to 6,000 a year, and are costing NHS Lothian more than 130,000 annually.

The medication either makes people vomit if they consume any alcohol, or numbs a certain part of the brain which craves drink, and in many cases are seen as a last-resort treatment.

Opposition politicians said the rise simply emphasised the need to tackle the alcohol problem, while experts said although both could be effective, they were not the answer to every alcoholic's situation. One charity suggested it was time to move on from the "outdated" treatment.

It is the latest in a ream of health statistics showing Scotland's spiralling alcohol problem.

The breakdown from last year showed the majority of the cash was spent on disulfiram – also known as Antabuse – which makes the human body repel alcohol, with a smaller figure for brain-adjusting acamprosate calcium.

Former footballer George Best famously turned to disulfiram in his battle with the bottle.

Alcohol expert Dr Jonathan Chick, a senior lecturer in Edinburgh University's school of molecular and clinical medicine, said: "This reflects the rising number of alcoholics in our population, and is backed up by other indices on hospital admissions and more recently, mortality rate.

"Both medications are used more generally now by doctors, where-as there used to be some reservations over disulfiram and how safe it was.

"They are effective treatments and have proved to be so, but they should be used along with other supports and are good for people to use while they reflect on a life without alcohol."

The number of prescriptions have risen steadily by around 300 a year since 2003.

Lothians Conservative MSP Gavin Brown said: "We need workable long-term solutions to tackle the blight of alcohol abuse across the Lothians.

"New legislation has been introduced to attempt to tackle alcohol abuse but we should have started by implementing the previous legislation before introducing new laws as the same problems still remain. Underage people are still being served alcohol as are those who are already drunk."

Bob Beckett, director of alcohol charity UK Advocates, added: "Disulfiram and acamprosate are fairly old hat and part of the outdated and failed pharmaceutical approach to alcohol dependency.

"Neither of these drugs were designed to be used as stand-alone treatments for alcoholism but many doctors due to lack of resources and a poorly-defined understanding of the compulsive disease of alcoholism have wrongly prescribed these drugs together with many others in a desperate hope that they may bring about the desired result."