COSTLY DRUG LINKED TO HEROIN TOLL FALL

A REDUCTION in heroin deaths in Western Australia has reinforced South
Australian Health Minister Dean Brown's call for the federal Government to
subsidise the controversial treatment drug, naltrexone.

Perth doctor and naltrexone pioneer George O'Neil said Western Australia was
the only state where more people were taking up naltrexone than were going
on methadone programs, and that the declining death rate was in stark
contrast to the 23 per cent increase in the national heroin death rate.

After increasing by more than 30 per cent annually between 1993 and 1997,
the death rate in the West has reversed over the past two years, a trend Dr
O'Neil described as "really significant".

He treats between 30 and 40 heroin addicts a week, with rapid detoxification
followed by naltrexone treatment.

Following the reversal in the heroin mortality rate in the state, the Court
Government began underwriting the cost of naltrexone six months ago,
effectively providing free treatment.

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Board is expected to reverse this month
its May decision to disapprove naltrexone's inclusion in the Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme (PBS).

Mr Brown said a PBS listing for naltrexone should be paired with extra
funding to expand rehabilitation services and conduct further research in
other types of treatment.

He told an Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) meeting in Adelaide
yesterday that the prohibitive cost of naltrexone up to $300 a month made it
inaccessible for many addicts.

"I regard it as an unacceptable perversity of the system that when a new
treatment becomes available which will expand the range of options . . . the
cost places it beyond the reach of those who stand to benefit from it," Mr
Brown said.

"It is very difficult to convince an unemployed person to go on naltrexone
and then charge them $300 a month."

Mr Brown said the ANCD, set up by Prime Minister John Howard in 1998 as an
independent drug advisory body, had the clout to influence a PBS listing.