Source: Hobart Mercury (Australia) Contact: http://www.themercury.com.au/ Copyright: News Limited 1998 Pubdate: 10 Nov 1998 Source: The Hobart Mercury Section: Page 10 Author: David Carrigg Note: Provides insight into drug use in a place heroin is virtually unknown. Some lines are missing. ABUSE OF PRESCRIPTION DRUGS SOARS IN HOBART THE shocking truth of Hobart's hard-drug user network was revealed at a forum yesterday. Most are addicted to prescription drugs which they get by fooling doctors, robbing pharmacies or buying from street dealers peddling prescription drugs from legitimate sources. And the problem is getting worse. Hobart doctor Rob Walters exposed the growing number of addicts "doctor shopping" for opiates and tranquilisers. But a user on the methadone program said easy access to prescription drugs in Hobart reduced street dealing and slowed the emergence of heroin in the state. The forum, titled Prescription Medicine - When Use Becomes Abuse; was timed to coincide with National Medicines Week. Dr Walters said Tasmania led Australia in the per capita abuse of prescribed medicine with the level of opiate dependence soaring. "In the past three years, opiate-related deaths were eight times that of the 10-year period between 1980 and 1990," he said. "In April this year, the Launceston coroner, reporting on a young woman who died from prescription drugs, said he was appalled at how easy it was to go 'doctor shopping' and acquire any prescription drug you want" Dr Walters said the blame lay somewhere between the doctors, patients, the Medicare system, pharmacists, and people making money by selling their excess drugs to dealers. Hobart pharmacist Greg Kay said pharmacists were the final link in the chain and were often able to first identify doctor-shoppers through a compulsory automated prescription system. Mr Kay said longer operating hours with fewer staff exposed pharmacists to increased risk from aggressive drug-dependant customers. "There are problems with soft doctors who believe the stories and insist they [the drug abusers] get their supply," Mr Kay said. "We had a man who was on a restricted prescription of two mogadon [benzodiazepine] a day, a white tablet, and said he had lost them on his kitchen floor and needed another two. "When he saw I was calling the police XXXXXX." XXXX and always will be. Eradication is impossible and the best we can do is harm minimisation starting with education," Dr Jackson said. A drug user at the conference said, drug education could have saved the life of 21-year-old Tasmanian Nathan Collet who died of a heroin overdose in Sydney last month. Mr Collet and a friend bought a street deal after drinking alcohol and shot-up in a quiet car park. They were sold a lethally high-grade deal and both blacked out shortly after. They died in their car but Mr Collet's friend was revived. - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski