UK - Drug policy change to save lives

[Lunar Loops]

This from the BBC News website:

Drug policy change to save lives

Police in North Yorkshire will no longer be called to reports of a drug overdose - in an attempt to save more lives.


The new approach has been introduced to make sure people who need help call medical services without fearing a criminal investigation.
Previously the ambulance service would often call the police to drug related incidents.
Now officers said they would only attend in exceptional circumstances.

'Real tragedy'

Cathie Gilles, North Yorkshire's drug and alcohol development manager, said many drug users delayed calling 999 in the event of an overdose because of police fears.
She said: "Our key aim is to make sure that we prevent such deaths where possible.
"They are a real tragedy because in many cases these deaths could have been prevented." Det Con Paul Johnson said officers would attend if there were child protection or suspicious circumstances.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Some decent news, thanks.

[FuBai]

Another way of preventing overdoses would be selling the drugs at set purity with no contaminates and instructions as to safe use. This would prevent the damage happening in the first place.

[Paracelsus]

An admirable approach. This will certainly save many lives.

FuBai: your idea is, while good in essence, not likely to happen too soon. 100% ambulance discretion is still a very important step forwards, even if just on a local level.

[Nature Boy]

It's like taking one step to left after many steps have been taken backwards already. A novel idea but when put in perspective, FuBai's point rings echoes.

[Alicia]

its good, but a better step would have addicts of registered presciptions for dia-morphine of known purity. so they can have there lives back and things can be maintained or along side needle exchange having narcan to adminster incase of an od.

[Paracelsus]

Isn't heroin substitution already applied in the UK for treatment-resistant addicts?

[FuBai]

I am on the verge of advocating the Swiss heroin system above full legalisation. It's proven to cut the number of addicts and crimes without increasing availability to the casual user. It may well be a way of solving almost all of the problems of both systems, although it still sacrifices individual freedom to some extent. As for the UK system I think that there is a provision that allows heroin substitution but it is not common practice.

[stoneinfocus]

the swiss, german and netherland´s model was applied to a small number of participiants only.
As the study´s aim wasn´t to stop and cure the addiction, but to show the aspects of legal heroin substitution, on heavily addicted people.

It´s a joke, how governments cut down the rights of treatment on the best way the medicine and society could possibly provide, to their laws, ideologiy and goverment-seats.

So this step is a very impotant shift in thinking, although on a level wich compares to swapping one´s misery to distress, and it -and this takes me wonders- makes one person´s live more important than obeying rules and is a leap into empathy within these people´s situation and their way of thoughts in this situation.

PS: I always thought medics secrecy should be taken a seriously as possible.

[rocksmokinmachine]

Originally Posted by Paracelsus

Isn't heroin substitution already applied in the UK for treatment-resistant addicts?

Yes, unfortunately only 0.5% of addicts in treatment recieve a diamorphine prescription. These are generally the ones that haves failed multiple methadone programs over a number of years.

[Paracelsus]

These are generally the ones that haves failed multiple methadone programs over a number of years.

Yes, that's the point. You can't prescribe heroin to a random guy who comes in and claims to be an addict.

[Police Officer]

This isnt too bad of an idea.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Well done old chap, well done.

[rocksmokinmachine]

I think it is a fantastic idea. It should only be available to a select few and the patient should be monitored very carefully. Daily supervised injections from a licensed doctor does not sound like a bad idea, following regular lab testing to check levels of use. (i.e. The addict is not 'topping up' with street heroin).

I think cost is a big issue. I think a 30mg dose of diamorphine HCL costs the NHS is excess of 20 pounds, Whereas as methadone costs mere pennies. It is very much a cost issue aswell as a political one.

[FuBai]

Originally Posted by rocksmokinmachine

I think it is a fantastic idea. It should only be available to a select few and the patient should be monitored very carefully. Daily supervised injections from a licensed doctor does not sound like a bad idea, following regular lab testing to check levels of use. (i.e. The addict is not 'topping up' with street heroin).

I think cost is a big issue. I think a 30mg dose of diamorphine HCL costs the NHS is excess of 20 pounds, Whereas as methadone costs mere pennies. It is very much a cost issue aswell as a political one.

1 gram of pure diamorphine cost the NHS about 6 pounds in 1999, I don't know how much it costs now, but it should be no where near that expensive.

[rocksmokinmachine]

Originally Posted by FuBai

1 gram of pure diamorphine cost the NHS about 6 pounds in 1999, I don't know how much it costs now, but it should be no where near that expensive.

Thankyou for clarifying that, I was informed by a drugs counsellor of that in my youth. So I may well have been misinformed. This is still quite a cost issue compared to methadone. I think there will be a public outcry, somewhere along the lines of "Why are my hard earned taxes going to feed these druggies habit".

See an interesting article I posted a while back about a young woman on a diamorphine prescription. It turned her whole life around.

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/sho...ght=heroin+nhs

[FuBai]

Originally Posted by rocksmokinmachine

Thankyou for clarifying that, I was informed by a drugs counsellor of that in my youth. So I may well have been misinformed. This is still quite a cost issue compared to methadone. I think there will be a public outcry, somewhere along the lines of "Why are my hard earned taxes going to feed these druggies habit".

See an interesting article I posted a while back about a young woman on a diamorphine prescription. It turned her whole life around.

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/sho...ght=heroin+nhs

Very easily rebutted problem - currently the average damage caused by each and every heroin addict in Britain from property theft alone is at 45,000 pounds a year per head! Even the most dire projections would have heroin substitution treatment programmes at little more than 10,000 a year, usually much less, which means that money is saved in the long run in insurance premiums or loss due to theft. Not only that but you have the savings in social damage such as the clogging of the criminal justice system with expensive cases relating to heroin charges which are almost always borne by the state because of the fiscal position of many addicts, plus the savings in police expenditure not only on direct possession crimes but in the violent crimes associated with illegal supply etc etc etc, the list goes on and on. We are talking about well over a 1/4 of a million addicts in Britain, and the savings will be at the most conservative estimate 25000-30000 per head, ending up saving at the very least 6.25 billion pounds a year if substitution was freely available to all addicts. I have left the estimate of savings so low because I recognise that it may well be difficult to get every single addict to use the treatment, and, indeed, it may not be right for some.