Pubdate: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 Source: Irish Independent (Ireland) Copyright: Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd Contact: http://www.independent.ie/ Author: Eilish O'regan, Health Correspondent HEPATITIS C EPIDEMIC IS `ENGULFING' DRUG ABUSERS An ``alarming'' Hepatitis C epidemic is engulfing drug abusers even though simple State measures could minimise the risk, a new report has warned. Dr Des Crowley of the Drug Detox Unit at Mountjoy Jail said our criminal justice system is negligent in not providing safe needles, bleaching tablets and, above all, intensive education about preventing viral spread within prisons. He said 80-90pc of intravenous drug users are now Hepatitis C positive, although harm reduction measures has meant a big reduction in the spread of HIV. The report on drug abusers in Mountjoy says that up to February of last year 187 prisoners had entered the detox programme. Of these 173 completed the course and 14 failed to finish the detox. However, the relapse rate once the addicts left prison was 78pc. Dr Crowley was critical of the lack of a methadone maintenance programme in prison. ``I feel the provision of methadone maintenance within the prison system could be the most significant intervention in the reduction of criminal activity stays in prison and viral spread,'' he said. He also described as ``disturbing'' the finding that half of those treated in the detox prison programme had never worked. ``It reflects the amount of resources that are required to tackle one of the underlying root causes of addiction long term unemployment. A large amount of money is required to put in place suitable training and rehabilitation courses both in the prison and the community. ``These rehabilitation courses need to reflect the needs of this population group and need to focus on literacy, addiction and self esteem.'' Dr Crowley's study found that the age of first contact with the criminal justice system was 13.8 years and the average age of entering prison 26.3 years. ``Most of our group have had over 13 years history of criminal activity before being offered drug treatment and rehabilitation in our criminal justice system,'' he said. ``This is a terrible indictment of our policy makers. If we could target early drug offenders with drug treatment we may stop this revolving door cycle,'' he added. He suggested that, to pick up this group, young offenders should have full drug assessments and urine analysis done when they come into contact with the criminal justice system. ``While we hear a lot about drug use and availability of drug within the prison system, a point which is rarely made is that prisoners use far less drugs in prison than in the community. This is due to reduced availability. ``Unfortunately because of the inconsistency in the heroin supply prisoners tend to use sporadically and tend to use unsafely,'' he added. - --- MAP posted-by: Greg