Irish Times
Monday, July 7, 1997

Methadone worsens problem, says group
By John Maher, Drugs and Crime Correspondent

The drug problem will get worse if the State continues to
promote methadone, free needles and other "harmreduction"
measures to tackle addiction, a new campaign group claims.

Eurad (Europe Against Drugs) aims to "roll back" official
policies in these areas, and advocates abstinence as the answer
to drug addiction.

At a meeting in Dublin last week Eurad criticised "liberal" and
"harmreduction" policies, and warned that they could be steps
towards eventual legalisation of drugs. Ms Grainne Kenny, the
Eurad chairwoman, said the State had been "putting more and
more emphasis on methadone as a treatment but it can only
form part of a treatment."

She produced speakers from Switzerland and the Netherlands
who argued that "liberal" policies on drugs use had led to a
growth in addiction in both countries.

Ms Kenny resigned from the Dublin Lord Mayor's
Commission on Drugs three weeks ago, after it decided to
advocate harm reduction policies in a report published last
Wednesday.

The current Government is broadly committed to the same
route, although Fianna Fail has warned of the dangers of
methadone and suggested addicts' use of it should be reviewed
after five years on a methadone programme.

Ms Kenny said it was "scandalous" that few politicians
attended last week's Eurad meeting. "I do regret that people
have not come from all the political parties to listen and to
learn," she said.

In the Republic "harmreduction" takes the form of free needle
exchanges, so that injecting abusers will not share needles
which could spread HIV and other viruses. It also means
distribution of methadone to about 2,000 opiate abusers in
Dublin.

The aim is to wean them off their heroin addiction, but privately
officials accept that 10 per cent or less eventually become
drugfree.

Methadone, most commonly taken in the form of a
yelloworange liquid, is drunk rather than injected. It provides
only a weak "high" compared with other opiates, and addicts
often combine it with other drugs.

The official push to widen distribution of methadone to Dublin's
opiate addicts over the past year has led to fears that
counselling and other supports which addicts should also
receive are being left to one side. It has also resulted in a busy
black market in the substitute drug.

At the meeting the Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Christy Burke, said
a distraught constituent recently told him she had spent £90 on
a blackmarket bottle of methadone for her addicted son.

"I honestly believe now that methadone is not the answer. It's
another drug and it can develop another addiction," he said.

The Trinity Court drug treatment centre in Dublin and the
Eastern Health Board are the State's major distributors of
methadone.

At the meeting Dr John O'Connor, medical director at Trinity
Court, said methadone was "a highly dangerous and addictive
drug in its own right, and it has to be treated with the greatest
caution possible."

He said methadone "had a place" in responding to opiate
addiction, but was not an answer to it.

The Eastern Health Board said later that it distributed
methadone through clinics and GPs as part of "a total package
of care which includes a full assessment of the patients, full
primary medical care, ongoing counselling support and urine
screening".

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