Doctor pleads for study of his drugs treatment

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32678, 6 August 1971, Page 2

Doctor pleads for study of his drugs treatment

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, August 5.

An Auckland medical practitioner, Dr R. A. Roche, has invited the Minister of Justice (Mr Riddiford) or his representative or any other nominated “responsible person or persons” to go to Auckland to investigate his methods of treating opium addicts, and their results.

If there was a consensus that the results were satisfactory, Dr Roche said, he would request a six-month amnesty so that his work could continue unimpeded by threat of police or Health Department interference.

Dr Roche was making submissions today before the joint Parliamentary. Select Committee which is considering four bills dealing with drug abuse.

“All I ask is a chance to demonstrate the worth of what I am trying to do,” said Dr Roche. “I implore you in the name of humanity to give me at least that much.

“The welfare and possibly the lives of 20 young New Zealanders and many, many others yet unknown are at stake in this issue. I beseech you to consider my request with sympathy and understanding.”

Opium addicts Dr Roche said he was giving treatment to 20 opium addicts, “obviously sick people and in urgent need of treatment.” Their liver and blood tests had shown the damaging effects of their dangerous habit, he said. “Because of their tragic plight over which they had no control, it was decided to offer them methadone replacement treatment combined with regular group counselling. “I regard methadone replacement therapy as a small, but extremely worthwhile step in the long path towards an eventual cure. It offers patients a chance to reduce or eliminate the need for injections with their attendant dangers of hepatitis, blood poisoning and local thrombosis,” said Dr Roche.

"However, I would regard the administration of methadone on a long-term or permanent basis as an admission of failure. The next step is motivation by group therapy to reduce the methadone or go through drug withdrawal in a hospital or institution.” Results quoted The results of the programme in the four weeks since it began had been most encouraging, Dr Roche said. Two patients had already asked for a reduction in their dosage of methadone. All had shown a marked improvement in their general attitude and general health. Under cross-examination, Dr Roche said he could not use methadone treatment without the group therapy follow-up, but group therapy alone would not work.

The Health Department’s assistant medical officer had, however, advised him that he regarded methadone treatment as medically unsound and had said he strongly disapproved of this form of therapy.

“Pushers” were selling enough crude opium for 20 to 30 injections for $35, and some addicts were having up to four injections a day. The pushers were selling methadone tablets, when they could get them, for up

to a dollar a tablet, whereas a week’s supply of tablets was costing the Social Security Department 50c, said Dr Roche. Laws attacked The secretary of the New Zealand Medical Association (Dr E. Geiringer) attacked present drug legislation. “It is with mounting horror that we have noted over the last few years that -the legislators have set their faces resolutely against the consensus of expert world medical opinion, and have preferred to seek justification for their legislative efforts from the most worthless and muddled sources,” he said. “If there is anything in this area on which world medical opinion is truly united, with the exception of a small and disreputable minority. it is that drug addiction must not be treated as a crime, or drug addicts as criminals,” Dr Geiringer said. “We affirm that a country which hounds, tries and convicts drug users has no claim to call itself civilised.”

Minors bill Referring to the Welfare of Minors Bill, Dr Geiringer said the question of when a child became an adult was, in the last resort, governed by biological and social realities, and not by legal conventions. “It is naive to think that young New Zealanders leave their homes* because the law allows them to do so,” he said.

“Restrictions cause both resentment and cpriosity, a most powerful combination to lead young people to experiment with the very things the restrictions are supposed to protect them from.”

At this point, Dr Geiringer was interrupted by the chairman of the committee (Sir Leslie Munro)—reported on front page—and the hearing adjourned until tomorrow morning.' View on penalties Earlier, the Association for Mental Health submitted that

the proposal to apply the maximum penalty in all cases of supplying narcotics to minors departed from the New Zealand tradition of “firmness combined with temperateness” and substituted “a measure of undiscriminating severity.” Presenting the submissions, a past president of the association (Dr J. Robb, of Victoria University of Wellington), said that for some individuals the consequences could be quite out of proportion to the gravity of the offence. Cannabis use There was ample evidence to show that the approach to the use of cannabis (marijuana) could be relaxed compared with the attitude to the other major drugs, said Professor A. J. W. Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Victoria University. Since 1925, when cannabis was declared a dangerous drug, not one paper had been produced in New Zealand to support this classification. During cross-examination, Dr Taylor said he was reluctant to press any case for the legalisation of cannabis, but he said he thought there was sufficient evidence to support its being reclassified separately from the known dangerous drugs such as opium derivatives and LSD. “I do not think relaxation on cannabis would give this drug an aspect of approval in the eyes of young people," he said. “If we cling to an assumption that is no longer tenable, people are more likely to take countermeasures; but if our attitude on cannabis was seen to be more reasonable, young people might be more reluctant to rebel against established attitudes on the harder drugs.”

“Not dangerous”

Controlled tests overseas in 1968 and 1970 had shown that cannabis was not dangerous, although it did have some distinct effects on “novice smokers,” Professor Taylor said. "I consider that this evidence is sufficient for me to conclude that the use of cannabis is not dangerous." Replying to the UnderSecretary for Education (Mr

Gair), Professor Taylor de-1 nied that people using canna-' bis did so to escape from society.

“Many are sensible and sensitive people doing a great deal for their fellow man,” he said. “They cannot be tossed aside as people of no consequence, and they are not among those who are anarchistic in their approach to society.”