ADDICTS FINDING NEW FIX

DRUG addicts in Ballarat are injecting prescription drugs to counter a
worldwide shortage of heroin.

From dealing with an average of one overdose a week in Ballarat two
years ago, Rural Ambulance Victoria has recorded only three heroin
overdoses in the city over the past 12 months.

Heroin overdoses in Ballarat have dropped to their lowest level in
recent memory with supplies of the drug all but dried up since the
fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and busts by Australian
authorities.

But doctors at the Ballarat Base Hospital are concerned that former
heroin addicts are turning to injecting crushed prescription
medication as an alternative.

Prescription only drugs containing substances such as morphine sulfate
have replaced heroin as the drug of choice.

Director of Emergency Medicine at Ballarat Health Services Base
Hospital Jaycen Cruickshank said the notion that heroin addicts
stopped taking drugs because there was no more available was false.

"We've seen a big reduction in heroin overdoses but our biggest
concern now is people buying prescription drugs which are not meant to
be injected through veins," he said.

"We've had four people admitted to emergency with opiate overdoses
over the past year with three of those admitted to hospital with
complications."

"People are shopping around these days for presciption drugs to
crush-up and inject and we're often dealing with people with multiple
GPs.

"Another problem is the Privacy Act prevents doctors from talking to
each other about individual patients.

"I'm forced to ring the Drug and Poisons Unit at the Department of
Human Services to check whether a person is on a permit to receive
certain medication."

The city's heroin problem was so rife three years ago there were calls
for a safe injecting facility to be set-up with 120 people registered
on the methadone program.