HEROIN SURVIVORS SNUB DETOX

Few hard-core heroin users would consider detoxification treatment even
after the traumatic, life-threatening event of an overdose, unique research
funded by the NSW Health Department has found.

Addicts were questioned for a survey minutes after ambulance officers had
revived them from overdoses, and in follow-up interviews seven days later.
Just 11 per cent of 48 addicts - fewer than six people - said they were
willing to stop injecting heroin and seek treatment.

Twenty-six per cent said they would continue using but with greater safety,
23 per cent said they would try to stop, 15 per cent said they would
definitely try to stop, 13 per cent said they would use less often and 15
per cent said they would not change, citing reasons such as lack of
willpower and "I love it".

One of the researchers, Dr Deborah Zador, said the findings contradicted the
myth that "all hard-core users are desperately wanting to stop and seek
treatment".

"We hope the Drug Summit is not slanted to the assumption that there is a
desperate need for treatment based on detox and rehabilitation -
abstinence-oriented strategies," said Dr Zador, a lecturer in clinical
medicine at Sydney University and a member of the NSW Ministerial Advisory
Council on Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs.

Her co-author was Ms Sandra Sunjic, a clinical nurse, who, with Dr Zador, is
a member of the Health Department's working group on reduction of heroin
overdoses.

They interviewed 141 addicts immediately after overdoses in south-western
Sydney and the inner city to test whether near-death had influenced them to
desist. Of those, 48 later responded to invitations for in-depth interviews.

"The overdose event did not appear to change subjects' low level of concern
about overdosing," according to their preliminary report, given a month ago
to the Health Department. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed twice did not
worry about a future overdose and three-quarters believed a future overdose
was unlikely.

The research also found that despite sophisticated understanding by addicts
of the extra dangers of using other drugs with heroin, few recognised that
poly-drug use contributed to their overdoses.

More than half administered heroin while under the influence of other drugs,
including alcohol and cocaine, "to enhance or increase the pleasurable
effects of drug use".