Pubdate: Fri, 26 Sep 2003
Source: West Australian (Australia)
Copyright: 2003 West Australian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.thewest.com.au
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/495
Author: Geraldine Mullins

SOCIAL SCIENTISTS TO BLAME

NEXT week is National Carers' Week. Your report (Crash risk is driver, not 
drug, 23/9) gave details of a Melbourne "conference" that was told that 
"half of the one in 100 Australians with a psychotic illness have a drug or 
alcohol problem and that these sufferers should not be expected to 'get 
off' drugs but be taught to manage by substituting a couple of beers for a 
line of speed".

Many who suffer mental illness are diagnosed with drug addiction. The WA 
Centre for Neurosciences has identified that those who suffer schizophrenic 
episodes and use marijuana or speed will be 20 to 30 times more likely to 
suffer worsening of their symptoms. Many will seek help in emergency wards 
but will be turned away because of lack of beds.  Politicians and the 
medical profession are not listening.

The director of health sciences at the University of Queensland, David 
Kavanagh, said he believed that it was important to get the mentally ill to 
use drugs safely. Is he for real? If there is one certainty about the 
hazards of managing the mentally ill, it is that they rarely comply with 
their regime of prescribed medication.

A failed 15-year-old harm minimisation pragmatism lurks behind the highly 
organised push to legalise all drugs and the responsibility for this lies 
with our social and health scientists.

It is time seriously to call for professional accountability and demand to 
be told just why our much-needed Federal and State health dollars are 
misappropriated.

GERALDINE MULLINS, Geraldton.
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