Addicts can be treated in jail

Press, 24 March 1977, Page 1

Addicts can be treated in jail

Wellington reporter Treatment was available for drug addicts sentenced to terms of imprisonment if they wished to avail themselves of it and if they were thought likely to respond, the Secretary for Justice (Mr G. S. Orr) said in Wellington yesterday.

He was commenting on the statements in Christchurch by M' H. J. Evans, S.M., and five Christchurch mental health experts, regretting the lack of facilities to help rehabilitate drug addicts in jail.

Mr Orr said the treatment of drug addicts continued to defy simple analysis, both here and overseas.

“The problem of treatment becomes more complicated when such people offend in ways which leave the courts no alternative but to sentence the offender to imprisonment,’! he said.

Experts working on drug addiction were agreed on two things; that treatment could be satisfactory only if it were voluntary, and that drug addicts were not usually highly motivated to take treatment.

“The fact is that only a small percentage of drug addicts seek such treatment while in prison,” Mr Orr said.

All people received a thorough medical examination when they arrived in

prison. Those experiencing withdrawal symptoms from drug use were usually placed, under observation and reviewed regularly by the medical officer.

There was provision under the Medical Health Act, 1969, and the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Act, 1966, for the Justice Department, with the consent of the person concerned, to make arrangements with the Health Department for the person to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital if he would benefit . from psychiatric care and treatment.

“We consider it desirable that this should hap-

pen rather than attempting to duplicate such services in prisons,” Mr Orr said. “Even if it were possible to do this in the short term, increasing the number of such specialists within the penal institutions would probably be at the cost of similar services elsewhere. “Headlines which indicate that a drug-addicted person has been sentenced to imprisonment for offences which some may argue were related to his drug addiction obscures the fact that treatment is available during the sentence for such offenders should they wish to avail themselves of it and are considered likely to

respond,” Mr Orr said. Justice. Department statistics show that more than 100 prisoners were transferred to psychiatric hospitals during 1976 out that only 18 of these were voluntary transferrals under section 43 of the Medical Health Act. It is possible that some cf the others were drug addicts whose derangement led to their being committed to psychiatric hospitals. So far in 1977, there have been 14 transferrals, of whom three have been voluntary under section 43.

The chances are that the 18 in 1976 arid the three in 1977 were drug addicts seeking treatment voluntarily.