RAPID DETOX TREATMENT TO BE TESTED ON HEROIN USERS

QUEENSLAND heroin users will be able to detox rapidly on Naltrexone
after a two-year clinical trial of the controversial drug begins in
Brisbane this week.

Some parents of drug users claim to have spent $30,000 to have their
children treated by the drug overseas.

Queensland Health announced the trial would begin at the Royal
Brisbane Hospital and Greenslopes Hospital. Up to 150 heroin and
methadone users would be involved in the trial with about 50 patients
to receive the rapid opiate detoxification treatment - previously only
available interstate or overseas.

Patients undergo a four-hour rapid detox under general anesthetic and
then must take Naltrexone for up to a year.

RBH Drug and Alcohol Unit director John Saunders said parents had been
spending up to $30,000 for their children to be detoxed using
Naltrexone in Israel and the United States.

"There are many parents who have mortgaged homes and spent between
$25,000 and $30,000 flying their sons or daughters to different parts
of the world and many people have had good results, but the problems
is that there has been no follow-up," Dr Saunders said.

"We've had people phoning from the Brisbane Airport saying 'can you
continue our treatment with Naltrexone'."

He said the trial, costing $500,000, would examine the long-term
benefits of the drug.

"We have literally been flooded by applications right from the first
announcement of a possible trial in December 1997," he said.

Deputy Opposition Leader Mike Horan said there had been an unnecessary
delay in the trial which was approved and funded by the Coalition to
begin six months ago.

"Instead of taking immediate action to tackle growing drug problems in
the community, we have seen the Government sit on its hand for six
months," Mr Horan said.

Co-ordinator Alex Wightman of QUIVAA, an injecting drug user health
group, welcomed the trial but said the delay had seen a black market
in the drug develop.

"There have been a number of private practices prescribing Naltrexone
and this has resulted in people not receiving adequate medical
supervision and some people have been taken into casualty because of
side-effects and reactions to Naltrexone," Mr Wightman said.

He also said Naltrexone was not a magical cure and there still needed
to be a range of options available to injecting drug users.

"Naltrexone will work for some but not for others and there will still
be a need for a full range of services that provide for people who are
still using heroin, who have only begun to experiment, as well as
those who have come to a decision that they need to stop," he said.

Queensland Health alcohol, tobacco and drug services manager Keith
Evans said staying off heroin was the biggest problem the addicts
faced, not the initial detoxification.

He said Naltrexone and methadone, which block the opiate sites within
the brain, had both been successful detoxification drugs in nearly 100
percent of cases.

"Detoxification is not complex, the problem has always been how long
people stay clean once they have stopped using heroin," he said.