God and methadone saved Mark’s life

A METHA DONE prescription coupled with a belief in God saved a Tayside man’s life.

Mark Ferguson (below) became hooked on heroin in the 1990s while working as a silver service waiter in Blackpool.

The 43-year-old, who grew up in Beechwood, Dundee, spiralled out of control after the death of his mother when he was just 17.

“When you are on heroin, every day is like your last day on earth,” Mark said. “I was suicidal and nobody would help.

“We broke into a sex shop in Blackpool that had lots of bongs in the window.

“We all got drunk and stood in the shop for half an hour looking at the videos.

“We saw the police lights coming and we were snookered.

“I got three months in Preston nick then I came back up the road.

“I got back in touch with sister and my gran — they thought I was dead.”

With his darkest days behind him, Mark has been on methadone for the last three years and is down to a dose of 70ml.

The former shoplifter has not o ff e n d e d since getting onto the programme.

“I wake up about ten to seven and about 10am I start getting a bit of a rattle,” he said.

“I use cups of tea with three sugars — that’s the thingg youy do with heroin.

“You are just down, depressed,pressed, stressed out. Youu are shattered.

“I get my methadone at 12 o’clock.

“You need a cup of tea to wash it down and get it to start working. Within 20 minutes you feel straightenedaightened out.

“That lasts you rightht through until thee next day.

“Previously I would be out shoplifting firstst thing in the morning.”orning.”

Mark remains addicted to butane gas, takes valium and occasionally smokes marijuana.

“Vallies take the rattling away but you still crave heroin,” he said.

“There’s been a lot of overdoses. I know a few guys who have died, and lassies as well.

“Drink and vallies are dangerous together but drink, vallies and heroin — you are just waiting for it.

“I’ve not had a drink for four years. I smoke weed but it’s just my wee pleasure. I’ve grown so much in the last month. I’ve found God — he’s my mate.”

Mark claimed the street trade in methadone is rife at weekends when chemists send users away on a Saturday with a bottled dose for Sunday.

He said: “It’s common for people to sell it or double dunt it and take it all on the Saturday.

“There’s always people searching for methadone.

“People will take the label off the bottle so the name isn’t on it.

“If the police stop them they can say it’s theirs but they wouldn’t trust you and would take it from you.”

A t the height of his addiction Mark weighed just 11 stone but is now up to around 20.

The regular dose of methadone allows him to live his life without resorting to theft.

“I feel at one myself,”y , he added.

with METHA DONE IS a synthetic opiate used as a substitute for people addicted to heroin.

It has similar effects to heroin but lasts longer. It was developed in Germany in 1937 to provide a reliable source of opiates.

The earliest accounts of its use in the UK were from papers published in the Lancet in 1947.

The documents describe it as “at least as powerful as morphine”.

In 1955 the Home Office was aware of 21 methadone addicts; by 1960 the number had risen to 60.

By the end of 1968 a notif ication system was set up, initially counting a total of 297 addicts.

Within a year the recorded number had risen to 1,687, as a result of the setting up of clinics.

The use of injectable methadone in tablets known as “jacks” in London from 1969 onwards led to the term “jacking up”.

A s heroin use increased through the 1970s, so too did the use of methadone.

The number of notif ied addicts on methadone was 1,110 in 1979, but that had doubled by 1982 and then doubled again by 1984, according to the Home Office.

Heroin and methadone continued a fast-paced spread across the UK over the next three decades.