IT IS TIME TO REVISE OUR TREATMENT METHODS OR THINGS WILL GET WORSE

To say the latest drug death figures released by the Registrar
General are a disappointment is an understatement bordering on the
absurd. Reducing drug-related deaths has been a target of government
policy for the last 10 years - with record numbers of users in
treatment and records amounts being spent.

The hundreds of millions spent on treatment in Scotland should have
delivered a marked reduction in the number of deaths. Instead, we are
seeing the opposite: an increase in overall addict deaths and a
worrying rise in the number of deaths associated with methadone, our
number one addict treatment in Scotland.

If there are any lessons to be learned in these latest figures, it is
that we will probably not see a sustained reduction in addict deaths
in Scotland until there is a marked reduction in the number of drug addicts.

For the last 10 or so years, we have entertained the notion treatment
services can focus on reducing the harm of continued drug use and
deliver positive benefits for users, their families and the wider community.

That is now looking like an echoingly hollow belief, with record
numbers of drug users dying prematurely. If we are going to be
successful, we need treatment services that are successful not simply
at stabilising addicts but in getting them off drugs.

We are also going to need effective drug prevention initiatives.
Throwing money at the problem while not evaluating the success of our
efforts is little more than an expensive folly.

Neil McKeganey is Professor of Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University