Handed out by SNP... enough methadone to give everyone a dose
‘Merely prolonging their problems’
MORE than five million doses of methadone have been handed out to addicts since the SNP came to power in 2007, latest figures show.
Statistics obtained by the Scottish Conservatives revealed 406,588 methadone prescriptions were dispensed from pharmacies in 2018-19, the equivalent of 1,114 a day.
Since 2007, a total of 5.6 million prescriptions have been handed out to addicts. While the 2018-19 figures are a slight reduction on previous years, it still means thousands of heroin users are being given next to no chance of fully recovering from addiction, according to critics.
Scotland was recently named as the drug death capital of the developed world, with nearly 1,200 people losing their lives to the problem last year alone.
Of those recorded deaths, methadone was present as a contributing factor in nearly half – more than any other drug.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs, who obtained the figures, said while the heroin substitute had a place in treating drug addiction, it was being far too heavily relied upon, and re-enforced his calls for a review of the programme.
He added: ‘People in receipt of methadone are known to services, in regular contact with them and should be prime candidates for some proper help and pathways into rehabilitation services.
‘Instead of parking these vulnerable individuals on methadone, we should be targeting them with a life plan so they can beat addiction once and for all and turn their lives around.
‘In many cases former addicts tell us that methadone is merely prolonging their problems and, as we can see from the most recent published figures, has a fair chance of contributing to drug deaths.’
Mr Briggs said this was the reason the Scottish Conservatives had called for an independent review of the methadone programme.
He added: ‘There are other areas and policy suggestions we want to see SNP ministers look at to address Scotland’s drugs crisis, and finally sorting out the over-reliance on methadone is one of them.
‘If it fails to do this now, we will see even more tragic and avoidable deaths in future. It is clear that the SNP’s ten-year drugs strategy has failed. We need a totally new approach to this national public health emergency.
‘That’s why I have called on Nicola Sturgeon to take personal leadership of and responsibility for the situation and coordinate a new approach.’
Methadone prescriptions peaked in 2010-11 at 534,674 individual prescriptions dispensed. In 2017-18 there were 423,656.
The heroin substitute was implicated in, or ‘potentially contributed to’, a total of 560 deaths last year – 47 per cent of the 1,187 drug deaths recorded overall.
Last year, methadone was prescribed for around 26,000 Scots, despite the fact that the SNP had promised a drugs strategy with ‘less reliance’ on the highly addictive substance.
Methadone is supposed to aid in the treatment of drug addiction.
The synthetic opiate is prescribed to people trying to come off street heroin, and is given as a green liquid that is swallowed. It has similar effects to heroin but does not deliver the same degree of high.
Users are supposed to take methadone instead of heroin and gradually reduce their dose over time, to avoid acute withdrawal symptoms.
But around 8,000 Scots have been on prescribed methadone for more than five years.
Scotland’s methadone programme costs around £60million a year.
The Scottish Government was last night unavailable for comment.