Pubdate: Tue, 04 Apr 2000 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Copyright: 2000 The Sydney Morning Herald Contact: GPO Box 3771, Sydney NSW 2001 Fax: +61-(0)2-9282 3492 Website: http://www.smh.com.au/ Forum: http://forums.fairfax.com.au/ Author: David Humphries, State Political Editor NO URINE TESTS, NO METHADONE, ADDICTS TOLD Methadone patients will need to sign good-behaviour contracts, including binding themselves to random urine testing, to continue on the anti-heroin addiction program. The new deal is part of the State Government's undertaking to implement last year's Drug Summit recommendation for an expanded methadone program, shifting from the traditional bigger dispensing clinics to local pharmacies. Already, 300 pharmacies are involved in the NSW program. The contract system is also a response to residential anger at the behaviour of methadone users around suburban clinics. "Methadone is a privilege and if people want access to it, the program is going to have to be more tightly run," a Government source said yesterday. Under the contracts, addicts must promise not to congregate around clinics, not to inject drugs, to participate in urine testing and to swallow methadone at the dispensing point unless granted special permission for takeaway doses. "The contracts will address concerns from the broader community about antisocial behaviour at methadone dispensing clinics," the Special Minister of State, Mr Della Bosca, said yesterday. He said the contracts, to be implemented over the next eight weeks, were part of a $93 million four-year expansion of funding for drug treatment services. Mr Della Bosca said failure to comply with contracts, which also committed dispensers to professional standards, could lead to addicts being forced from the program. He said the scheme was intended to overcome the "honeypot effect" of large dispensing clinics and to ensure that those on the program did not persist with intravenous drug use. Mr Della Bosca called on the Federal Government to speed up approval for the heroin treatment therapy, Buprenorphine. This follows the Federal Government's rejection of the controversial naltrexone from listing on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, thereby precluding its widespread use for heroin treatment. But Mr Della Bosca said Buprenorphine had been shown in testing to be more effective than both methadone and naltrexone. He said the opioid analgesic, being tested in NSW, did not have the overdose risk of naltrexone, was taken in tablet form every second day, was used on 50,000 French addicts, retained 87 per cent of patients in treatment, and could be used to withdraw from methadone as well as heroin. Mr Della Bosca said it was understood the Therapeutic Goods Administration was planning to consider Buprenorphine's registration in June but that this might put off a final Commonwealth decision until next February. "In the meantime, doctors across the country could be using it to help save lives," he said. Anti-drugs campaigner Mr Tony Trimmingham said the contracts scheme for methadone users threatened to destablise people already in fragile conditions. The Opposition Leader, Mrs Chikarovski, said no contracts system would work unless it required a commitment by people on the program to ultimately get off methadone. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D