NT DRUG CRACKDOWN CONSEQUENCES

MAXINE McKEW: The Northern Territory's record for drug abuse, both alcohol
and tobacco use, as way above the national average has been boosted with
the addition of another drug -- morphine.

It's now the narcotic of choice for Darwin's drug-using community, and,
till recently, the main source has been doctors' scripts.

For the first quarter of this year, the number of prescriptions for
high-dose morphine in Darwin was greater than the total number in NSW.

The alarming figures have come to federal attention and a resulting
crackdown is having its own alarming consequences.

Murray McLaughlin.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Its trade name is MS Contin, MS for Morphine Sulphate,
and in Darwin it's most commonly dispensed in 100mg tablets, 20 to a packet.

In the first quarter of this year Darwin doctors wrote 2,500 prescriptions
for MS Contin 100mg tablets, more than were written in NSW or any other
State for that matter.

DR PHILIP NITSCHKE: Darwin is a unique place for people that are addicted
to narcotics, and that comes about because heroin has always been expensive
in Darwin, it's been of poor quality, and so people have tended to make use
of prescribed narcotics -- in other words, prescribed morphine.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Philip Nitschke should know.

In August his history of prescribing MS Contin to Darwin patients brought
him to the attention of the Health Insurance Commission, which monitors the
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Alarmed at Darwin's remarkable use of prescribed morphine, the HIC issued
heavy warnings to the town's doctors and that's had effect already among
Darwin's opiate users.

CHARLES ROBERTS, DARWIN NEEDLE EXCHANGE: Of our client base here at the
needle exchange, we see approximately 35 to 40 people a day and about 70
per cent of those used to be using morphine.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Used to be?

CHARLES ROBERTS: Yeah.

One of the things that's happened with the Health Insurance Commission
arriving in town is that morphine is more difficult to get and the thing
that's happening is it's being replaced by heroin.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Darwin's needle exchange handed out 436,000 needles last
financial year.

Per head of population, that's a distribution rate 50 per cent higher than
in the ACT.

The needle exchange does a survey each October.

A year ago, heroin users were less than 6 per cent of its client base.

By October this year, that had more than doubled.

CHARLES ROBERTS: There are several implications for that, the main one
being concern about overdoses.

With MS Contin it's a known quantity, it's always going to be 100mg today,
tomorrow and the next day.

With heroin, you can have -- you can get it from different places and
you'll have different quantities and qualities, which can lead to overdose.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: The Health Insurance Commission not only warned
individual doctors about their MS Contin prescribing, it also met with the
NT police and the Medical Board which licences doctors.

The Law Society says the warnings were specially threatening because of
Territory law.

JON TIPPETT, PRESIDENT, NT LAW SOCIETY: The Poisons and Dangerous Drugs Act
in the NT prescribes a penalty of $2,000 or two years imprisonment for any
doctor who treats addiction as an illness where that addiction does not
arise in the context of any other medical condition.

So a doctor cannot treat addiction alone, the doctor must only treat a
medical condition.

If the doctor treats addiction, the doctor's committing a crime.

DR PHILIP NITSCHKE: I found myself in the situation time and time again
where the choice was either to turn your back on an addicted patient or to
prescribe morphine.

It was far better medically to prescribe morphine for people like this than
to turn them back out on the street.

No way is it reasonable to legally challenge or threaten doctors who try to
act in those very unsatisfactory circumstances.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: The NT is also the only jurisdiction to refuse a
methadone maintenance program for opiate addicts.

That was highlighted last week, when the Darwin coroner inquired into the
deaths of two people who'd been using prescribed morphine.

Their doctors refused to give evidence, but the Australian Medical
Association argued that methadone maintenance programs help to keep people
alive.

DR PAUL BAUERT, AMA PRESIDENT, NT: Doctors are trying to care for these
patients with one arm tied behind their back really.

We are the only jurisdiction which doesn't have a fully comprehensive drug
rehabilitation program, but until that occurs, really Territory patients
are at a disadvantage compared with patients in other parts of the country.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Two years ago the Darwin coroner lamented the absence of
a methadone maintenance program.

The Government did introduce a methadone reduction program, but it runs
only three months -- too short a time, doctors say, for addicts to stabilise.

But a methadone maintenance program remains off the agenda.

STEPHEN DUNHAM, NT HEALTH MINISTER: In analysing the decision, the
Government was not of the view that any of the States with methadone
maintenance programs could adequately demonstrate that they'd reduce things
they'd set out to do, like lawlessness, drug overdoses, the criminal
behaviour that often accompanies illicit drug use, so our belief was that
while the policy end of it would say that it's a very good intervention, a
quick analysis would show that often that's not the case.

MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Darwin doctors are on notice that they'll now prescribe
morphine at their peril, and Darwin's peculiar drug culture will inevitably
shift more to heroin abuse.

Habits previously supervised by doctor's script and financed by public
money will now be subject to the hazards and vagaries of the street.

Watch Darwin's crime statistics.