Drug treatment 'unrewarding’

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33250, 13 June 1973, Page 3

Drug treatment 'unrewarding’

i:\eir Zealand Press Association) ROTORUA, -June 12. The amended narcotics regulations should be given at least six months trial before even a tentative opinion was formed of the success or failure, the Minister of Health (Mr Tizard) said today.

He said to the annual conference of the Medical Association of New Zealand that he felt a year would be necessary before any firm conclusions could be justified. “Experience can show what adjustments or new: approaches should be adopted,” he said. The amended regulations establish public clinics for drug addicts and limit prescribing to addicts by doctors. : “It’s illogical to maintain: that because addicts, whether real or self-styled, have made i little use of public clinics in the past the system must fail now,” Mr Tizard said. “So long as people have the ready alternative of getting supplies by going from doctor to doctor, or are able to find acceptance by docI tors offering maintenance treatment, the public clinics can obviously have little attraction for this type of person. “It’s a harsh and bitter truth, but all experience Igoes to show that the treat-; ment of established drug de-. I pendency is liable to be un-i satisfactory and unreward-; ing.” Mr Tizard said that too many people had talked of methadone maintenance as if , it were a panacea. It had its; place, but it was a confession/ of failure. “In almost every patient: who is genuinely drug de-j pendent there must have: been a phase where serious' dependency could have been, avoided by firm guidance and proper social and medical care. “Once that-phase has been) passed, the chances of perma-;’ nent cure are very poor indeed, even in the most ex-| perienced hands.” Mr Tizard said most New Zealand doctors believed that the urgent need was to ensure that doctors did not] promote dependency by; allowing themselves to be’ “conned” by people who were' seeking drugs for kicks. This

was very difficult before the amendment to the regulations. “The second most urgent ( problem is to ensure that those people who haven’t reached the point of no return—those whose dependency is as yet not irreversible! —are given every encouragement to become once more free men and women.” Patients genuinely needing ;maintenance treatment should be properly looked after, but this should be recognised as( a last resort and not as a (satisfactory method of deal-, ing with the situation as a social and medical problem,” Mr Tizard said.