NEW PLAN FOR JAIL METHADONE

MANY more drug-addicted prisoners would get methadone therapy under a plan
the WA Government is considering.

Prison officers oppose the idea and say a special drug treatment jail
should be provided.

But Attorney-General Jim McGinty favours giving prisoners access to the
same drug treatments they would have outside prison.

"As a general principle, the medical treatment available in prison should
be the same as that available to other members of the community," he said.

The Department of Justice was considering expanding access to methadone as
one of many options as part of a new prison drug strategy.

Under the existing prison methadone program, only 30 to 50 WA prisoners
receive methadone at any one time. Last week, there were about 2150
prisoners in the public system and 660 in privatedly-managed Acacia Prison.

Prisoners usually are on the program only for several months but on average
it costs the department $1489 to provide methadone to one person for a year.

It is given only to prisoners who are HIV positive, pregnant, new to prison
and undergoing heroin detoxification, or already on methadone when entering
prision on short-term remand. It is supplied as part of a substance abuse
education program.

The department said last June it was considering a small trial of providing
bleach to prisoners, who use it to sterilise injecting devices.

Mr McGinty said bleach would be considered as part of the new strategy, to
be developed over the next few months.

Simon Lenton, senior research fellow at Curtin University's national drug
research institute, said expanding the prison methadone program would be
welcome.

Since 1987 NSW had had an extensive prison methadone program.

Mr Lenton said prison methadone programs were effective in treating
heroin-related problems and reducing needle-sharing and HIV and hepatitis C
transmission, thereby also reducing risks to prison officers.

But WA Prison Officers Union president Phil Giblett said NSW prison
officers had reported horrendous problems with the methadone program.

"Anyone you speak to in NSW will quite openly tell you they wish they could
get rid of it," he said.

Prisoners were regularly wandering all over a prison to get their
methadone, making it hard for officers to maintain control.

Mr Giblett said methadone simply substituted one addicition for another and
if the Government was serious about prisioner drug treatment it would have
a set jail for it.