S.I. house for addicts

Press, 8 March 1984, Page 23

S.I. house for addicts

Evidence of a growing drug problem has convinced those running Auckland’s Odyssey House programme for drug addicts that it may be time to start a South Island equivalent. The director of the Odyssey programme, Mr Ray Braithwaite, said that he and two of its trust members were planning a trip to Christchurch within the next month to stir iip interest in the idea of forming a similar trust.

“What we are hearing quite frequently from people in the South Island is that there is a big drug problem there,” he said. “It appears to be getting worse."

They would talk to interested social and health services, and Government department officers about the 18-month to two-year Odyssey House programme and the successes it was starting to count.

Mr Braithwaite said the Auckland programme had a lot of referrals from the South Island, but the logistics put it out of reach of many addicts. Only five of the 53 residents came from the South Island.

Dr John Dobson, of the Christchurch Alcohol and Drug Dependence Centre said a therapeutic community was badly needed for South Island addicts.

Getting them into Odyssey House was “like trying to plan a trip to the moon,” he said. Apart from the distance and money involved in travelling to Auckland for an interview, there was also the unreliable nature of some addicts who even had trouble keeping appointments. Dr Dobson said that the Queen Mary Hospital at Hanmer Springs was taking on more addicts but the one special centre, in Waimate, had closed more than a year ago.