Subj: Ireland: Heroin on prescription as addiction solution urged



Date: Thursday, November 12, 1998



Source:    Irish Times





Heroin on prescription as addiction solution urged 

By Catherine Cleary, Drugs and Crime Correspondent



The Government should consider new approaches to the drug

problem, including prescribing legal heroin, according to a

member of the National Drugs Strategy Team (NDST).



Father Seán Cassin, former head of the Merchants Quay

project, told a Dáil Committee yesterday that a Swiss project

prescribing heroin to addicts had claimed "significantly good"

results. The NDST is the statutory agency set up to

co-ordinate the work of local drugs task forces.



"We're not in favour of anybody using or injecting drugs,"

Father Cassin told the Joint Committee on European Affairs.

"But today some 10,000 injecting drug users are going to take

heroin, they're going to inject it and find or rob or steal the

materials necessary to inject it."



The Swiss experiment involved around 1,100 heroin users over

three years, he said. "There was a significant reduction in the

level of crime. One third actually went into drug-free treatment

and a further third went on to maintenance programmes of oral

alternatives to heroin."



Father Cassin said one criticism of the Swiss project had been

that it had picked those addicts more likely to succeed.



"We have a situation here in Dublin at the moment where the

use of cannabis is, in reality, decriminalised." If the i Garda

pursued all cannabis users then the system would be

overwhelmed, he said. So a pragmatic approach was taken in

Dublin, where heroin was the main concern. Mr Fergus

McCabe of the NDST told the committee that the debate

about such projects could "lead to all kind of hysterical and

irrational responses." "We can't have good policies, rational or

effective policies, unless we have information," he said. There

was an "urgent need" for a national drugs advisory board, he

said.



"In every other jurisdiction in Europe there is an advisory group

or council there." Ireland's drug policy had been the result of

health policy on the prevention of AIDS, he said. Mr Tony

Gregory (Independent) said the Swiss experience was that

heroin crossed all social classes. Mr Gay Mitchell (FG)

criticised the Eastern Health Board for its response to the

problem. "Inchicore was devastated by people coming from all

over the city to one chemist to get their methadone."



Senator Brendan Ryan (Independent) said the Swiss police

"had the peculiar role of having to deliver heroin to the clinics,"

because of security considerations. And a report, almost

completed by members of the committee would be about

"neither liberal nor conservative solutions, but what has been

seen to work."



Father Cassin said politicians were afraid to decriminalise

drugs.