Doctors who prescribe tranquillisers for financial gain are feeding the supply of these drugs on the streets, a medical expert warned yesterday.
The warning came after a report on the Eastern Health Board's drug treatment services found that 65 per cent of those attending its treatment clinics tested positively for benzodiazepines, a group of tranquillisers including Valium.
The national GP co-ordinator for the methadone protocol, Dr Ide Delargy, said the benzodiazepines on the streets were being prescribed by family doctors. Between six and 10 GPs in the EHB area who prescribed the drugs in return for financial gain were the source of a large quantity of benezodiazepines on the streets.
"These doctors are already known to the authorities, but no action has been taken," she said.
A consultant psychiatrist at the London-based National Addiction Centre, Dr Michael Farrell, in his review of the EHB's drug services over the last five years, warned that the high rates of benzodiazepine indicated a major problem of polydrug use by abusers which required urgent and concerted attention.
The Minister of State with special responsibility for drugs strategy, Mr Eoin Ryan, said he would be seeking a protocol for doctors prescribing benzodiazepines.
Dr Delargy said the Irish College of General Practitioners would welcome the proposed protocol. Those who continued to breach these guidelines would then have to be tackled by the Medical Council.
In contrast to the high rate of benzodiazepine use, just 30 per cent of patients attending treatment clinics tested positive for opiates. However, Dr Delargy said, it was very hard to stabilise patients with an opiate addiction if they were also taking benzodiazephines.
Dr Farrell said the board had embarked on what was probably one of the more innovative community drug service programmes in Europe. By last October more than 4,000 people were on methadone treatment programmes, he noted.
The success in getting 30 per cent of drug-users back to work was remarkable by international standards, he said. While this might indicate the positive work climate, it was also striking evidence of the board's success in the rehabilitation of those treated.
Dr Farrell also noted that the success of the clinics was reflected in a fall in crime. Research carried out for his report found a 77 per cent drop in burglary, a 75 per cent cut in fraud and a 67 per cent reduction in shoplifting by patients after a year's treatment.
"Reductions in criminal behaviour at one year represented cost savings worth some £5.2 million to victims and the criminal justice system, leading to the conclusion that for every pound spent on treatment there is a return of more than £3 in terms of cost savings," Dr Farrell said.
The EHB will spend £25 million on its drug services this year, an increase of more than £5 million.