Drugs Rethink Over Quick Methadone Fix

A major overhaul of Scotland’s war on drugs will be unveiled this week as a report reveals a shocking rise in the number of addicts being ‘parked’ on heroin replacement drugs.

The NHS paper says 21,000 people in Scotland are being prescribed methadone by their GPs, a rise of more than 10% over the last three years. The rise comes despite research which shows that only a tiny minority of addicts manage to kick their heroin habit despite being given the replacement drug.

SNP ministers are expected to act on a separate report, also due out tomorrow, which will demand a major increase in programmes designed to get addicts off drugs while they are being given methadone. Ministers say they want to provide an “exit strategy” to addicts so they are able to shake their habit.

The reports were commissioned by the former First Minister Jack McConnell following the death of two-year-old Derek Doran, from Elphinstone near Tranent, after he drank the methadone which had been supplied for his parents. McConnell commissioned a policy review, amid growing complaints that methadone was failing to stop the growth in drug abuse and was putting addict’s children at risk.

New drugs minister Fergus Ewing will announce this week that the methadone programme will stay, but he will also pledge to increase rehabilitation services. Ewing, who was suspended from Loretto School in Musselburgh when he was 16 for smoking cannabis, said: “There is a recognition that we need to do more to provide an exit strategy.

“There is no simple solution. Residential care, non-residential care, gradual reduction, total abstinence – we will need different solutions to different types of people.” He added: “It is no use governments saying ‘Give it up, you must stop’. If we withdraw methadone then many will go back to heroin.”

The move follows calls by the Conservatives to spend £100m a year on rehabilitation for drug addicts. Figures show £32m is currently being spent. Ewing said: “There is an argument for more funding too, and we will be hoping to discuss that with other political parties.”

The NHS report tomorrow will increase concerns about a repeat of the Doran tragedy, revealing that a third of the 21,000 people taking methadone have children under the age of 16 living with them. Ewing said he would be taking a “hawkish” approach to methadone prescription, hinting that more addicts will be asked to take the drug at a pharmacist rather than at home.

While backing methadone, the Scottish Advisory Committee on Drugs Misuse will also criticise the limited availability of treatment to addicts, aside from the drug. More than 50,000 Scots, or 1% of the population, are now thought to be problematic drug users – a far higher proportion than in England. Ewing will meet experts from the committee, led by consultant psychiatrist Dr Brian Kidd, on Tuesday to discuss the options.

Committee member Tom Wood, the former deputy chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, said: “Methadone can never be and has never been designed to be a single response. Methadone has been left to the job on its own, which it wasn’t designed to do.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives added: “Some people are waiting more than a year or two years to get treatment for addiction. We have never had a true handle on the true extent of the problem and we have been parking people on methadone, which was never the right solution.”