LOVE IS THE DRUG

Hello, I'm Caroline Jones. Tonight, one family's struggle to find a
positive solution to the destructive problem of drug addiction.

Tony Sands is one of only a handful of people getting injectable
morphine - the closest legal drug to heroin - not from a dealer but
from his own doctor. Of course, it's a controversial treatment that
goes against the advice of many in the medical profession. But
according to Tony's family, not only does it work, but it should be
available to others.

DEB SANDS: We've tried to get by on a day-to-day basis, like most
families - make ends meet, put food on the table.

But there has been something quite extraordinary behind the scenes
with our family.

Something which we have had to deal with and something that not a lot
of people have known about.

Tony has a 20-year history of drug use.

In our laws there is no reference to junkie, addict, scumbag.

Those words do not exist in our law. I look at Tony as a human being,
husband and father of my children before I even think of him as a
drug...a person who uses drugs.

TONY SANDS: Nowadays I go and see my GP a couple of times a week, he
writes my scripts out for the morphine, and then I go to the chemist
shop. I leave my scripts there and each day I go in and pick up the
medication that I need. Because I'm using the morphine for pain it's
legal.

It's not an illegal act. That's the difference. It's like people say
all the time about alcohol, "but alcohol's legal". Well, so is morphine.

I'm not breaking any laws. My family don't get upset about it. They're
happy...they're happy that I'm out of pain, that I'm comfortable, I'm
not running around the streets.

Everyone's happy.

Yeah, they class me now as a therapeutic drug dependent person instead
of just being a drug dependent person per se. A drug dependent
person's a junkie, whereas a therapeutic drug dependent person's still
a junkie, but you're a legitimised junkie in their eyes, I suppose.

I don't...I'm not sure, but that's how I see it, you know.

DEB SANDS: I understand that he may be on this for the rest of his
life. I can accept that more now that he is stable.

He has probably been the most stable than he has ever been in the past
20 years.

There are times that I feel Tony reminds me a bit like Peter Pan. I
mean, a lot of them are like that. They are so sick that they really
don't live. They don't mature like other people who don't have this
illness.

TONY SANDS: I was about 15 and me...myself and a few mates used to
knock around at this milk bar. We met Debbie and some of her friends
and I've been with Debbie ever since

DEB SANDS: Yeah, one day something clicked.

He just wanted somebody to talk to and I listened.

Then everyone started experimenting with alcohol, then pot came along,
speed, and the guys started getting into heroin.

It didn't seem a problem, him using heroin, at first.

I didn't think it would be 20 years down the road and he would still
be using.

Not in my wildest dreams would I think that. It was the house, the
children - that was my dream.

TONY: From when I was 17 to 25 I did some time in jail because of the
heroin.

DEB: Money's tight when you're trying to put milk, bread and heroin on
the table. Sometimes when he would go clean we would save up. We were
always trying to save a deposit for our home and every time we would
get our deposit for a home it seemed that he would get back to the
heroin and our deposit was gone.

TONY: I only survived because Debbie didn't use. If Debbie AND I used
we wouldn't have survived, you know. The only reason, and the only
reason I've survived today, is because of Debbie.

DEB: There were times when he was, I suppose, under the influence of a
cocktail of drugs or he would be in that much withdrawal, he would go
on that much...It gets to you. You do turn on them. You just want them
to stop, you want to go to sleep and someone is being sick, and you
just want them to stop. You wish they would go somewhere else and die.
Just get out of my life, die somewhere else and get it over and done
with, please.

But you don't want that and deep down, you know.....when I knew there
was another way, I never ever wanted to feel.....I never wanted to
have those thoughts ever again.

I try not to think about what this had done to my kids. The kids
understand what a heroin addict is. They understand what society
thinks of a heroin addict.

DAVID SANDS, son: Nobody's given me a hard time about it, no. I think
most people understand after they've been told, you know, what's wrong
with him and that. When my dad brings out his medication I don't
really notice it that much because I've gotten used to it and he
always puts all his stuff away - all the needles and everything. Yeah,
my dad is a bit unusual because of the...the problems he's had, but,
yeah, he's pretty cool because of being able to get over all those
problems and still be pretty cool.

GARY SANDS, Son: Yeah, there've been a lot of ups AND downs and the downs
have been upsetting.

I've had a hearing defect since birth and that's also on top of the
family problems we've had with Dad being sick. I'm a third-year
environmental science student and it's been hard with him being sick
to try and concentrate on study.

There have been a few times when he gets really angry when he's in
pain and gets a bit irritated.

It's hard to be cranky with him because you know that he's sick and
that's it's not some...his fault that he's sick.

DEB: After a few years of all this there was talk about methadone.

By then we knew that rehab.....he had tried that so many times and it
didn't work.

TONY: When I first went on methadone they said, "Oh, you'll be on this
for three to six months and you'll be right.

You'll be cured." What really happened? Um, ten years of hell. For
some reason, my body didn't tolerate it at all. Years later they
changed the methadone because the sugar was rotting everyone's teeth.

I couldn't even hold it down then. I'd drink it and vomit it up 90% of
the time.

ALLAN SKEEN, friend: You would see him after he had been for his
medication.....he'd be highly activated, eyes would be dilated,
nervous twitches and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, it was fairly obvious that it was having a bad effect on him.
Deb and I become close friends and she'd often discuss Tony's actions.

Those actions would range from, um, violence, sometimes, to, uh,
incoherent screaming and yelling and...I used to think that.....how
long can stand this stress that he's going through or that he's
putting on people around him? It's bad enough bringing up three kids
without an extra one.

DEB: There were a lot of people that told me to leave him. I knew what
they were thinking.

I knew that they thought I was crazy, you know, and people would say
to me, "Why do you put up with it?" And I would say, "He's sick", and
people would say, "No, he's just a junkie." And I'd say, "No, he's
sick. He's my husband, he's sick."

TONY: I kept trying to get off the methadone, but unfortunately I
couldn't get any help to get off it. I happened to bump into a bloke
who was telling me when methadone first came out in Queensland it was
injectable. So I started injecting it to stop the withdrawals and
being sick. But I didn't understand the difference between injectable
methadone and the methadone that they were handing out at the clinic,
which is not sterile - it's two different things altogether.

DEB: Nobody warned me, nobody told me what would happen to him. It was
quite horrible.

It was horrible.

He ended up in intensive care, fighting for his life.

DR DAVID GREEN, Gold Coast Hospital: We saw Tony really living the life of
someone with an almost passionate addiction to narcotics.

Injecting narcotics with non-sterile technique can put germs directly
into your bloodstream, and commonly does. Eventually he presented here
in extremis with septicaemia and endocarditis. Tony was always a very
demanding patient that made his presence felt in the department,
probably much to the chagrin of the nursing and medical staff at times.

Tony subsequently developed heart failure and valve problems requiring
cardio-thoracic surgery, which is a service not available here on the
Gold Coast.

He was subsequently transferred, via the Care Flight helicopter, to
Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane. On transfer his chances of
survival were probably pretty minimal.

DEB: They didn't expect him to live. His fingers and the soles of his
feet and his toes went black, and it looked shocking.

He had lesions throughout his brain, all throughout every major organ
in his body. Every major organ was failing.

But I didn't want him to die. I had no idea what he would have to go
through...I had no idea...all I knew was I didn't want him to die. The
children and I hardly left him.

TONY: The first thing I remember is coming to in intensive care at
Prince Charles Hospital three weeks after the initial hospitalisation.
I'd lost a lot of weight - I was down to 45 kilos, basically half what
I am now.

DEB: Not long after Tony was placed on morphine and pethidine for the
pain. The difference with him on that drug compared to methadone, and
the difference in his health...he was just a different person, because
it took him from being very sick - a very sick person - to put some
life into him, as far as what I could see. He was joking and laughing
and, you know, he was up and about, able to walk around.

Somebody from Drug and Alcohol Services came over, decided that they
didn't like his treatment, and had written up for him to be placed on
methadone and for the morphine treatment to stop.

TONY: There was no way I was going back on methadone.

It had just taken 10 years of my life, nearly killed me, and here they
are trying to put me back on methadone.

Although I was critically ill I walked out of the hospital rather than
go back on methadone.

There was no way I was gonna go back on methadone.

DEB: The Health Department was saying it was unlawful for Tony to have
morphine because he had been on methadone and because he had a long
history of heroin dependency. So I took myself off to the library to
find out more about endocarditis, more about methadone.

I started at the local library, but after a while I found that I
needed more, so I took myself off to the university. I had very little
formal education and I don't have a degree in anything.

After a while it was like a treasure hunt for me. I thought there must
have been a particular law because they had said it was illegal for
him to have morphine, so I had to find what the hell they were talking
about, what law they were talking about.

Well, there was no law. I didn't find any law that said that he could
not have morphine.

In fact, all the laws that I did find had provisions in them that he
should receive quality health care. I knew that I was onto something.

So when I was right once, I kept going and going.

PAT ASSHETON, friend: Debbie Sands is just amazing.

She's a little ferret. She gets into those legal books and she ferrets
out this little piece here and this little piece here and this little
piece here. Going to a meeting with Debbie at the helm is an
experience not to be missed.

She's a tigress. She's a very gentle, loving girl, but she's a tigress
when it comes to saving her family, and she is determined to save
Tony's life.

DEB SANDS: There were times that I felt like I was taking on Goliath.
I was told that the chief health officer of Queensland under no
circumstances would approve Tony ever having morphine again.

But we were invited to a meeting at the Queensland Health Building to
discuss Tony's treatment. And I put it to her that she was making a
moral decision, not a clinical decision at all.

The meeting concluded with Tony ... Tony's doctor was able to treat
Tony with morphine if he thought that was in the best interests of
Tony's health. I think it was a major breakthrough. This morphine is
now prescribed primarily for pain because of the extensive organ damage.

Later we won another battle, getting approval for Tony to inject
himself.

TONY SANDS: I pick up my medications and I just have my injections
when I need 'em, which I need one now, so I'll just have it. So, um,
you know...and it's so simple and easy, like, for me, and it's clean
and, you know, there's like...If police walked in now there's no dramas.

So...it just makes...makes life so much easier.....than any other way,
you know.

DR JOHN SCOTT, Qld Health: That is unusual.

Would be one of only a very small number of situations where this sort
of treatment is being approved. We've taken into account, right from
the start, this person's situation in terms of their problem that's
caused their chronic pain. We've also considered the psychological
impacts of that pain on the person's make up. And ultimately, what it
comes down to is a decision which is not based wholly and solely on
departmental policy or governmental legislation, but it's also based
on a consideration of what is going to be, ultimately, the best
approach for that person and for their circumstances.

DEB: He has been receiving this treatment for the past 12 months and
he has stayed pretty stable over that period of time. It is the
closest thing to heroin and it causes less side effects than the other
chemical alternatives out there.

TONY: Because of my spleen...the damage done to my spleen, it's
extremely painful. So when I have the morphine it just kills the pain.
Morphine only lasts a maximum of four hours so you have to have it at
least four hourly, so I have six injections a day. My lifestyle is
basically pretty normal life now, because I haven't...I don't have to
run around and try and get heroin or get money for heroin - be
involved in the crime element, which people have to be in to get the
money.

DEB: Morphine is available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and
that is affordable for people like us. It's more affordable than heroin.

ALLAN SKEEN: I'm a personal trainer.

I deal in an area of work where you come to analyse people's health by
the way that they look. He certainly looks a lot better than when I
saw him last. And if the medication that he's on now is part and
parcel of that program then I'd like to see it continue.

Well, I was amazed to see Debbie and Tony still together.

Uh, they seem to be stronger today than they were when they
first.....when I first met them.

PAT ASSHETON: I have seen Tony when he's very unstable, very ill, and
being totally mismanaged by the medical authorities. And I have seen
the difference to when he's properly managed, which is calm, able to
cope, able to work, great fun to be with, and where it makes a
difference to the whole family.

DAVID SANDS: In the future I'd like to see.....hope my dad stays on
this medication 'cause it's keeping him healthy.

And that, um, there's something done about all the other people that
should be on this medication.

DEB: This morphine treatment is not an option at present for drug
dependent people.

Tony's doctors are unable to be part of this story because they would
be inundated with requests for help.

The Drug and Alcohol Services are just not interested in this
treatment option. They refuse to trial morphine injections. They have
told my husband that this treatment will be given to, no-one else will
get this treatment. So why? You would have to ask them.

TONY SANDS: This treatment's only available because of the pain. Well,
the way I see it, people that are in withdrawal and sick because
they're vomiting methadone, or whatever the case may be, they're in
pain, so...to me, pain's pain. They can't discriminate against one
type of pain against the other I wouldn't have thought.

PAT ASSHETON: So, to me, I think the treatment should be
available.

The Queensland Health Department's attitude towards medication being
morphine by injection is, 'oh, shock, horror!

We can't do this. America won't like it, John Howard will fall off the
balcony.' They are just reacting from a point where they have come
from, which has been indoctrinated in them for the past 25 years.

They say, "We don't like injection, you can't do that." What about
diabetics?

What about haemophiliacs and many other disorders?

DR JOHN SCOTT: I think the department's response will be similar to
the response of most people who have made a study of this area who
have devoted their lives to managing chronic pain, and that response
will be, no that's not the appropriate response for the majority of
people.

It's not the response that we would recommend.

And I'm sure that the department would be supported in that view by
experts not just in Queensland or Australia but by experts around the
world.

DR DAVID GREEN: There has to be an argument to look at every option
available, but what I've learnt through here, through 15 years of
emergency medicine, is that people with narcotic addiction is a
disease, that has no social class, and that it is probably one of the
most difficult problems that we ever treat.

If you see a person such as Tony, who had that problem for a long time
and who by this means feels that he's come up with a viable solution
with a harm minimisation strategy, then it must be looked at.

DEB: A lot of times people see on the TV the bad side of these guys.
hey see them when they're really sick. They don't see that they
actually get in and cook dinner, that they love their kids - they love
their kids every bit as much as the next guy. I would argue that
anybody who was experiencing the problems that my husband was
experiencing - they should be afforded this drug therapy as a trial.

Can we give this people a better quality of life by giving them this
treatment?

He's unable to do the work that he used to do. Now that things have
settled down we are looking at him retraining - computers or something
like that.

A lot of people are amazed that I've stuck by Tony, but I knew this
guy before heroin came along and throughout, I know the real person.

And, you know, if you take away the drug problem he really is a nice
guy. And that's what I have been fighting for - is the real person.

The person that has been, um...that society didn't want to know
about.

TONY: I wouldn't class myself as an angel, that's for sure. A lot of
people say that, you know, I'm a bit of a knock about sort of a bloke,
bit of a rough diamond, you know. Like, I'm amazed that Debbie's stuck
around myself, at times, and I'm sure a lot of people are. But, like I
say, Debbie's a very strong, determined person and that's probably
what I liked when I first met her.

GARY SANDS: Mum sticks by Dad because she loves him and she loves us
and, it would be a lot worse for all of us if we weren't all together.

Dad wouldn't be getting the right treatment, and I don't know what
would have happened if she hadn't kept it together throughout all
these hard times.

DAVID: I guess it's a good thing that my mum has stood by my dad,
otherwise I wouldn't have a dad now.

DEB: There are a lot of things we can't get back. Things that were cut
short because of his illness, but from now on it seems that we can go
forward. Because of him getting the treatment he receives today we can
move on. We don't have to go around in circles anymore.

Deb Sands is now actively campaigning for drug law reform.

She is part of
a group which has submitted detailed recommendations to a House of
Representatives Standing Committee.