EXPERTS BACK DRUG STUDY

ADDICTION experts, substance users and a welfare group have welcomed the
release of a medical study which has raised concerns about the
controversial anti-heroin treatment naltrexone.

The West Australian reported yesterday that a two-year study of 3617 Perth
heroin addicts by psychiatrist James Fellows-Smith and GP James Edwards
found that untreated addicts were less likely to die than those who dropped
out of the naltrexone program.

Perth doctor George O'Neil runs a naltrexone clinic in Subiaco.

The study - which Dr Fellows-Smith has submitted for publication in a
prominent medical journal but has made public beforehand in an effort to
stop more preventable deaths - found that addicts on the streets had a one
in 100 chance of dying.

Addicts prescribed naltrexone had a one in 61 chance of dying and those
prescribed methadone had a mortality rate of one in 458. James Bell,
director of the Langton Centre at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, warned
against people being seduced by the short-term success that naltrexone offered.

Dr Bell said naltrexone patients faced real danger if they dropped off the
program and started using heroin again because of their reduced tolerance
to opiates.

Patients who took naltrexone orally had a low retention rate on the program
and naltrexone implants were still at the experimental stage, he said.

On the other hand, most patients were able to function normally in the
community when they took methadone to control their addiction.

WA Substance Users Association manager Tamara Speed said her agency had had
concerns about naltrexone for a number of years and had produced 2000
flyers alerting drug users to the risks of over-dosing after coming off
naltrexone.

Ms Speed claimed that naltrexone patients were not being adequately told of
the risks.

"Naltrexone has got a place along with other treatments and I don't want it
to disappear but it needs to be better prescribed," she said.

Mission Australia regional manager Anne Russell-Brown said the study had
brought back some reality to the debate about drug treatment and
underscored the need for a broad approach to combat substance abuse,
particularly among young users.

Ms Russell-Brown said a proposed drug summit needed to move beyond the
current debate about naltrexone and safe injecting rooms and focus on the
issue of prevention and family support.

"Government and community decision-makers need to understand that there is
no one-stop solution to the issue of substance abuse," she said.