NALTREXONE CALL FROM OSBORNE

AFTER blocking the ACT budget due to its funding for the safe heroin
injecting room. Brindabella MLA Paul Osborne has called on the Government to
set aside funds for naltrexone treatments to rid heroin users of their
addiction.

Mr Osborne wants the Government to use the $1.29 million crime prevention
fund to quickly expand on past trials in Canberra. He said a Western
Australian program of 320 places a year had kept 50 per cent of addicts
drug-free after six months.

"Naltrexone is not going to work for everyone, but its rate of success is at
least 50 times better than any other treatment we currently have available."

Mr Osborne said naltrexone could be used for both rapid detox and and as a
maintenance treatment. He said naltrexone was effective in helping people to
get and stay off using heroin by treating both the physical and
psychological addictions.

This was in contrast to the safe injecting room trial, which Mr Osborne said
was "designed to keep people chained to the misery of their addiction", and
wasn't designed to keep people drug free.

Results from two Canberra trials involving naltrexone are yet to be
finalised but Mr Osborne said there was enough evidence from elsewhere to
support extended naltrexone trials being started soon in Canberra.

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Michael Moore said as many different
treatments for heroin addiction as possible needed to be considered,
including naltrexone. However, the Minister would have to look at the
proposal before deciding action to take about it.

A spokeswoman for Treasurer Gary Humphries said it was still to be
determined where the money from the crime prevention fund would go.

Dr Stuart Reece, who runs a naltrexone clinic in Brisbane, said "naltrexone
could relieve the drug crisis in the country".

Mr Reeve said more than 60 per cent of his patients were drug free after six
months, and that evidence showed naltrexone was successful in keeping 63 per
cent of patients drug free after a year.

However, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health senior
fellow Gabriele Bammer, who was involved in both Canberra trials, said
Australia-wide trials had so far suggested that the success of naltrexone
"is very modest at best".

She said it would be sensible to wait for 6-12 months until the full results
of numerous heroin treatment trials were finalised, to ensure taxpayers
dollars were spent on effective treatments.

She said there was no rigorously tested evidence so far that supported
claims on the great success of naltrexone.