ABUSE OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS SOARS IN HOBART

THE shocking truth of Hobart's hard-drug user network was revealed at a
forum yesterday.

Most are addicted to prescription drugs which they get by fooling doctors,
robbing pharmacies or buying from street dealers peddling prescription
drugs from legitimate sources.

And the problem is getting worse.

Hobart doctor Rob Walters exposed the growing number of addicts "doctor
shopping" for opiates and tranquilisers.

But a user on the methadone program said easy access to prescription drugs
in Hobart reduced street dealing and slowed the emergence of heroin in the
state.

The forum, titled Prescription Medicine - When Use Becomes Abuse; was timed
to coincide with National Medicines Week.

Dr Walters said Tasmania led Australia in the per capita abuse of
prescribed medicine with the level of opiate dependence soaring.

"In the past three years, opiate-related deaths were eight times that of
the 10-year period between 1980 and 1990," he said.

"In April this year, the Launceston coroner, reporting on a young woman who
died from prescription drugs, said he was appalled at how easy it was to go
'doctor shopping' and acquire any prescription drug you want"

Dr Walters said the blame lay somewhere between the doctors, patients, the
Medicare system, pharmacists, and people making money by selling their
excess drugs to dealers.

Hobart pharmacist Greg Kay said pharmacists were the final link in the
chain and were often able to first identify doctor-shoppers through a
compulsory automated prescription system.

Mr Kay said longer operating hours with fewer staff exposed pharmacists to
increased risk from aggressive drug-dependant customers.

"There are problems with soft doctors who believe the stories and insist
they [the drug abusers] get their supply," Mr Kay said.

"We had a man who was on a restricted prescription of two mogadon
[benzodiazepine] a day, a white tablet, and said he had lost them on his
kitchen floor and needed another two.

"When he saw I was calling the police XXXXXX."

XXXX and always will be. Eradication is impossible and the best we can do
is harm minimisation starting with education," Dr Jackson said.

A drug user at the conference said, drug education could have saved the
life of 21-year-old Tasmanian Nathan Collet who died of a heroin overdose
in Sydney last month.

Mr Collet and a friend bought a street deal after drinking alcohol and
shot-up in a quiet car park.

They were sold a lethally high-grade deal and both blacked out shortly after.

They died in their car but Mr Collet's friend was revived.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski