Pubdate: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 Source: Australian, The (Australia) Copyright: 2001 News Limited {YEAR} Contact: Box 339 GPO Adelaide, SA 5001 Fax: (08) 8206-3688 Website: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/ Author: John Kerin HEROIN DROUGHT DILEMMA FOR DOCTORS HEROIN users are turning to potentially lethal cocktails of cocaine, amphetamines and tranquilisers to overcome an international "heroin drought".And frontline Sydney hospitals and inner-city GPs are seeing an upsurge in limb-threatening injuries as addled users hit major arteries when injecting themselves with the fluid from oral benzodiazapine "gel caps". Drug-related crime is also on the rise as desperate heroin users seek to raise the $80 to $100 needed for a single hit of heroin, compared with $20 just 12 months ago. The downside of the heroin drought was detailed by one of Australia's most respected drug researchers, the head of the St Vincent's Drug and Alcohol Services Unit Alex Wodak, at a meeting of drug groups in Canberra. The groups, including the Australian Medical Association, the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council and Action on Smoking on Health, called on the federal Government to spend an extra $180 million of its $7 billion alcohol and drug tax take on treatment and rehabilitation. Dr Wodak said yesterday that while the drop in heroin deaths was encouraging, users were moving on to whatever they could get and some were doing themselves horrific needlestick injuries. Treatment programs were stretched beyond their limits. "(Users are) moving on to cocaine, amphetamines; they're moving on to benzodiazapines (tranquilisers); they're moving on to whatever they can get . . . and they're also moving on to a lot of prescription drugs," Dr Wodak said. "It's extraordinary that this heroin drought . . . the nirvana that we've been hoping for, when we finally achieve it, doesn't seem to be quite as wonderful as many people thought." There had been an upsurge in heroin users reporting to inner-city GPs and hospitals with horrific injecting injuries. "I saw a person yesterday who'd been injecting temazepam gel capsules into his groin and had a shocking injury because he'd hit an artery. So we are seeing those sorts of things as a result of the heroin drought," he said. An inner-city Sydney GP, Andrew Byrne, told The Australianthat doctors were under greater pressure to prescribe the tranquilisers: "It's hard to tell who can't get their hit of heroin and who's genuine." He said at least one Sydney hospital had seen so many cases that it was admitting only the most serious. Injecting the gel cap fluid into major arteries could result in serious infection, blood clotting and, in extreme cases, amputation. Australian Medical Association national president Kerryn Phelps said the organisation was looking for a "very strong commitment" from the federal Government on illicit drugs and that drug addiction should be treated as primarily "a social and health problem". - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D