Pubdate: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 Source: Age, The (Australia) Copyright: 2000 David Syme & Co Ltd Contact: 250 Spencer Street, Melbourne, 3000, Australia Website: http://www.theage.com.au/ Forum: http://forums.f2.com.au/login/login.asp?board=TheAge-Talkback Author: James Chessell Note: Part of the series The Heroin Debate Links: to articles on these topics: Heroin: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm Heroin Overdose: http://www.mapinc.org/find?132 Methadone: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 Needle Exchange: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 Safe Injecting Rooms: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 Australia & New Zealand: http://www.mapinc.org/aussie.htm HEROIN: DIVERSION FAILS TO STEM TIDE The number of heroin-addicted Australians has more than doubled in the past decade, despite the country leading the world in diverting users into methadone treatment programs. Two studies to be released in the Australian Medical Journal today reveal that public health policies and rising methadone use - the drug most widely used in treating heroin addiction - have failed to halt the upsurge in heroin dependency. Scientists from the University of New South Wales National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre said that about 74,000 Australians, or seven out of 1000 adults aged between 15 and 54, used heroin daily. The figure reflects a global boom in heroin production and represents a 118 per cent rise on 1984-87 estimates of 34,000 dependent heroin users nationwide. A separate study by the School of Pharmacy at Curtin University of Technology in Perth revealed that methadone use in Australia was equal with world leaders Switzerland, New Zealand and Denmark. The rate of consumption grew by 17 per cent a year from 1984 to 1998, outstripping all other countries. Despite the seeming failure of methadone to curb the problem, the study's authors said methadone programs remained the best way to combat heroin. "The rate of access to methadone has about kept pace with the increase in the underlying problem," said the NSW report's senior author, Professor Wayne Hall. "If we expect methadone to get on top of heroin use we probably need to get a lot more people into treatment than we have. Our best guess is that we have only about a third of the heroin population in treatment in any one time." Queensland University's professor of alcohol and drug studies, John Saunders, said: "The evidence for the benefits of methadone maintenance in reducing mortality rates is now compelling." But the Perth study concluded that the implementation of opiate-based programs - which include methadone, morphine and pethidine - needed to be improved in some regions. Benny Monheit, from Monash University's Department of Community Medicine and General Practice, said he welcomed the findings that methadone consumption was rising, but state and Federal Government initiatives were not coping with demand in states like Victoria. "The few doctors that are providing methadone are really overwhelmed. We've faced a 15 per cent increase in demand every year for the past three or four years and we're just bursting at the seems. We just can't cope," Dr Monheit said. The NSW report estimated that the purity of street heroin in Sydney increased from 10 per cent in 1979 to about 60 per cent in 1993-95. "The nominal price has remained stable at $30 for a street 'cap', but effective price per ounce of pure heroin has declined from about $16,000 in 1979 dollars to $5000 in 1999 - the difference is even greater when account is taken of inflation," it said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake