Sir, - Eurad (Europe Against Drugs) argues that the drug problem will get worse if methadone maintenance programmes and needle exchanges are used to contain the problem. It advocates abstinence as the answer to drug addiction. Of course its answer is simplistically correct, but unfortunately is wishful thinking. A long-term study on relapse rates in the treatment of drug addiction, published in the British Journal of Addiction in 1988, found that following in-patient detoxification, 46 per cent were reusing drugs at six months, and 97 per cent at one year. John Maher in The Irish Times reports that officials in Dublin privately accept that only 10 per cent or fewer of drug addicts become drug-free following treatment.
Last month, a study of needle exchange programmes published in the Lancet found that the prevalence of HIV infection increased by 5.9 per cent a year in 52 cities where no needle exchanges were provided, but decreased by 5.8 per cent a year in 29 cities with needle exchanges.
This State, through the Methadone Maintenance Programme, has effectively legalised the use of one opiate outside the normal contexts of therapeutic pain relief in anaesthesia and palliative care. Opiate addiction is being recognised as a disease, and is being treated as such. Public health needs demand that the current policies are extended and not reversed. If Eurad's attitude should prevail, public health would suffer and criminals would get even richer. - Yours, etc., Dr BILL TORMEY,
Glasnevin Avenue,
Dublin 11.