GPS CRITICISED OVER PRESCRIBING DRUGS

Doctors who prescribe tranquillisers for financial gain are feeding the
supply of these drugs on the streets, a medical expert warned yesterday.

The warning came after a report on the Eastern Health Board's drug treatment
services found that 65 per cent of those attending its treatment clinics
tested positively for benzodiazepines, a group of tranquillisers including
Valium.

The national GP co-ordinator for the methadone protocol, Dr Ide Delargy,
said the benzodiazepines on the streets were being prescribed by family
doctors. Between six and 10 GPs in the EHB area who prescribed the drugs in
return for financial gain were the source of a large quantity of
benezodiazepines on the streets.

"These doctors are already known to the authorities, but no action has been
taken," she said.

A consultant psychiatrist at the London-based National Addiction Centre, Dr
Michael Farrell, in his review of the EHB's drug services over the last five
years, warned that the high rates of benzodiazepine indicated a major
problem of polydrug use by abusers which required urgent and concerted
attention.

The Minister of State with special responsibility for drugs strategy, Mr
Eoin Ryan, said he would be seeking a protocol for doctors prescribing
benzodiazepines.

Dr Delargy said the Irish College of General Practitioners would welcome the
proposed protocol. Those who continued to breach these guidelines would then
have to be tackled by the Medical Council.

In contrast to the high rate of benzodiazepine use, just 30 per cent of
patients attending treatment clinics tested positive for opiates. However,
Dr Delargy said, it was very hard to stabilise patients with an opiate
addiction if they were also taking benzodiazephines.

Dr Farrell said the board had embarked on what was probably one of the more
innovative community drug service programmes in Europe. By last October more
than 4,000 people were on methadone treatment programmes, he noted.

The success in getting 30 per cent of drug-users back to work was remarkable
by international standards, he said. While this might indicate the positive
work climate, it was also striking evidence of the board's success in the
rehabilitation of those treated.

Dr Farrell also noted that the success was reflected in a fall in crime.
Research carried out for his report found a 77 per cent drop in burglary, a
75 per cent cut in fraud and a 67 per cent reduction in shoplifting by
patients after a year's treatment.

"Reductions in criminal behaviour at one year represented cost savings worth
some pounds 5.2 million to victims and the criminal justice system, leading
to the conclusion that for every pound spent on treatment there is a return
of more than pounds 3 in terms of cost savings," Dr Farrell said.