HEROIN ADDICTS ARE BEING 'TURNED INTO ZOMBIES'

A leading drugs support worker claims health authorities aren't interested
in curing heroin addicts -- only in turning them into zombies.

Janice Jess, who runs the Grampian Addiction and Drugs Problem Service,
criticised the use of methadone to stem the craving for heroin.

"It's like switching whisky for vodka," she said. "Why are we using
taxpayer's money for this? What's wrong with abstinence?

"The Health Board doesn't want to get people off heroin. It wants to
control them. In the real world people are looking for a cure, to fly on
their own juice.

"You'd think methadone was the only cure for heroin addiction. Everything
is geared towards it."

Janice wants to see greater use of lofexidine, a drug whicch eases
withdrawal symptoms and "detoxifies" a heroin user within 10-14 days.

"Most heroin users are scared of withdrawal. These wee peach coloured pills
will cut it by half to three-quarters. If we can get people to believe
that, we're on to a winner.

"If somebody really wants to come off heroin it's more effective than
methadone because you've stopped them using an opiate."

Methadone is a man-made version of heroin. The aim is to gradually reduce
the dosage and wean patients off drugs altogether.

GHB's chief adminstrative pharmaceutical officer, Dr. Christine Bond,
explained: Lofexidine and methadone have different roles in the treatment
of opiate users.

"They are prescribed on the basis of clinical need. Lofexidine is not
denied to patients on cost grouds."

Lofexidine won't "stabilise" a patient in the way methadone does. GHB said
it won't "prevent longer term cravings for opiates."

A spokesman said: "Stabilisation treatment may take weeks, months or years."

But Janice Jess warns that this approach will solve nothing in the long-term.

"There are people in Edinburgh who have been on methadone for 15 years.
They're not drug free. They're on methadone. Mentally they're never going
to be drug free. They've got to live with cravings, just as a reformed
smoker or alchoholic does.

"You've got to give them a chance to use their willpower."

Grampian Health Board recently introduced protocols to ensure methadone is
consumed on chemist's premises, at first on a daily basis.

This is to prevent patients from overdosing or selling the drug to others.
Methadone kills nearly 20 people in Grampian each year.

Methadone creates other problems. Under the Health and Safety at Work Act
and the Merchant Shipping Act, anybody taking methadone is not allowed to
work offshore or on a boat.

This makes kicking heroin a difficult task for offshore workers and fishermen.

Lofexidine causes slight drowsiness similar to a hayfever tablet and may
stop somebody from working. However, the patient is drug free within a
fortnight [2 weeks]. Any offshore worker who goes on a methadone programme
could be forced to quit his job.

"No thought was given to our indigenous industies when the methadone
programme was introduced in Grampian. We have young fishermen spending
1,000 ukp a weekend on heroin. When they go back on their boat on Sunday
night they aren't free of heroin."

Grampian Health Board hasn't evaluated the success of methadone treatment.

A spokesman said: "Scottish Office guidance issued last year to all GP's
was that nationally recommended course of action for treatment of opiate
users was methadone.

"Considerable research work done by clinicians in Glasgow supports the use
of methadone."

The Grampian Addiction and Drugs Problems Service has a success rate of
nearly one in 10 with clients who have been prescribed lofexidine.

"I've never known anybody die from heroin withdrawal," said Janice Jess,
"but they do die from methadone overdoses.