PUB] Date: Mon. June 30 1997
Source: Evening Express (Aberdeen. UK) 
Contact:  

                       Blair urged to ban methadone
      Drugs worker's plea as addicts abuse 'wonder cure'

A Worried Northeast drugs worker has called on the help of the Prime
Minister to ban the controversial heroin substitute methadone.

Grampian Addiction Problems Service coordinator Janice Jess claims addicts
are picking up the prescribed drug from GPs  and then scoring heroin to
top up the "hit".

Ms Jess has alerted Tony Blair and SNP leader Alex Salmond to what she says
is a tragedy in the making.

Addiction agencies are giving worried parents false hope by recommending
the methadone "wonder cure", she claimed.

Methadone is prescribed by GPs  as pills or liquid  to wean addicts off
heroin.
 But Ms Jess said the drug is being widely misused  a problem highlighted
by the Evening Express recently.

She said she wrote to Tony Blair after discovering 17 of her clients were
using prescribed methadone during the week and then shooting up at the
weekends.
  "There are too many parents out there who have been given the impression
that
it's a cure for heroin," she said

"I have never seen anyone successfully brought off heroin with methadone
and they have been using it for years.
 "I'm afraid that a youngster is going to succumb to 'doublescoring'."

Two thirds of the Northeast's 30 drug deaths last year were thought to
have been caused by methadone.
 She has called on Mr Blair and Mr Salmond to back her call for a methadone
ban.

Aberdeen GP Dr Murdoch Shirreffs admitted methadone carried similar risks
to other opiates.

The drug could cause breathing problems, he pointed out  but closely
controlled, it is a  valuable tool in the fight against addiction.

Methadone has similar effects to heroin but dosages could be reduced
gradually to manage the addiction.

The drug also gives addicts a more controlled lifestyle and is meant to
stop them committing crimes to feed their habit which happens when they are
on heroin.
 But Dr Shirreffs admitted misuse is rife.

Addicts often hold the dose in their mouth, spit it out once out of the
surgery or pharmacy, and then sell it on.

"It is not a safe drug by any means but it certainly has its place," he
said.
  "We need to give it in single doses and under supervision."