Pubdate: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 Source: Canberra Times (Australia) Contact: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/ Author: David Brand Note: Geoff Page's article is at: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n388.a04.html DOCTORS' STANCE NEEDS CLARIFICATION WHILE the Australian Medical Association encourages debate on drug-law reform and on the treatment of addiction, the record does need to be set straight in relation to Geoff Page's assertion that the AMA opposed the criminalisation of heroin in his article "The great sidestep on heroin" (CT, 7 April, p.9). It appears Mr Page was refering to the medical profession's stance on heroin when the Commonwealth was in the throes of making heroin illegal, in 1953. The fact is, it was the AMA's precursors, the British Medical Association's Australian branches, which were opposed to heroin being made illegal. Mr Page's source, Drug Prohibition: A Call For Change, by Alex Wodak and Ron Owens, clearly stated it was the BMA in Australia that took that stance. Unfortunately, Mr Page did not make the most of his source and explain why. According to the source, "the BMA feared that the proposed prohibition of heroin would deprive them of a useful drug frequently prescribed for the pain of childbirth and the often untractable pain of terminal cancer". Heroin remains, to this day, the standard painkiller administered by British doctors for acute heart attacks and other extremely painful conditions. Since then, medical advances have enabled the profession to use more effective drugs and pharmaceuticals for pain relief, and high-tech anaesthetic procedures to provide better surgical outcomes. In 1999 the AMA supports programs for the treatment of heroin dependence and the proposed trial of heroin prescription for the management of dependence. (Dr) DAVID BRAND Federal President, Australian Medical Association Ltd, Barton - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake