{"id":4543,"date":"2009-08-18T16:33:54","date_gmt":"2009-08-18T15:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=4543"},"modified":"2009-08-21T11:49:04","modified_gmt":"2009-08-21T10:49:04","slug":"concerns-over-methadone-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2009\/08\/concerns-over-methadone-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerns over methadone use."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;\">Minister of State for Community Affairs John Curran has expressed \u201cgrave concern\u201d that people addicted to drugs \u201cseem to be on methadone for an extended period of time\u201d.<br \/>\nHe said \u201cnot everybody who uses methadone uses it exclusively\u201d and it appeared to be taken with a combination of other drugs.  \u201cI may not be in my position long enough, but I would like to see the hard evidence to show progression\u201d and an \u201cactive methadone-reduction programme\u201d.<br \/>\nThe Minister was answering questions about Health Research Board figures which revealed 2,442 drug-related deaths in the eight-year period from 1998-2005.<br \/>\nLabour spokesman Jack Wall expressed concern that 60 deaths in 2005 involved the use of methadone. If drug addicts were getting access to methadone from more than one source \u201cinstead of curing themselves, addicts are creating more problems for themselves\u201d with addiction to methadone.   Mr Curran said the HSE \u201cis in the process of implementing a national overdose-prevention strategy which would address the issue of benzodiazepines, prescription drugs and methadone\u201d.<br \/>\nReferring to the figures for 2005, the Minister said of the 400 drug-related deaths \u201ccocaine was implicated in 100 deaths\u201d, while 25 per cent of deaths from poisoning were \u201cthe result of alcohol in conjunction with another drug\u201d.<br \/>\nHe said while illegal drugs were involved in many cases, \u201cprescribed drugs and over-the-counter medication, such as anti-anxiety drugs like valium, antidepressants and pain-killers, are frequently involved in such deaths, either alone or in conjunction with illegal drugs\u201d.<br \/>\nCatherine Byrne (FG, Dublin South Central) expressed concern about service cutbacks in drugs task force areas. \u201cI will not criticise the Minister, whose heart is in the right place,\u201d she said.<br \/>\nHowever, she warned that crime was greatly linked to drugs, and the Government had to \u201ctake the drugs issue seriously if we are to get anything done\u201d.   She said the local Inchicore drugs team had to reduce its budget by \u20ac30,000, and other services in Wexford and Tipperary had being asked to reduce their budgets by 14 per cent.<br \/>\nMr Curran said while the funding in 2008 was \u20ac34.776 million, it was \u20ac34.6 million for 2009, a slight reduction. However, spending had increased significantly over the years.<br \/>\n <em>Source, Marie O&#8217;Halloran, The Irish Times,05\/03\/2009<\/em><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of State for Community Affairs John Curran has expressed \u201cgrave concern\u201d that people addicted to drugs \u201cseem to be on methadone for an extended period of time\u201d. He said \u201cnot everybody who uses methadone uses it exclusively\u201d and it appeared to be taken with a combination of other drugs. \u201cI may not be in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}