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Police and pain meds . Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 8:33 am
two examples side by side in the NZ herald today.
Two very different approaches by the police in dealing with pain meds.
tony
Nelson man caught with $40k worth of cannabis
6:13PM Tuesday August 26, 2008
Police found cannabis worth almost $40,000 when they searched a Nelson man's home in June.
Matthew Parrott, 34, a jeweller, pleaded guilty to one charge of cultivating cannabis and one charge of possessing the drug when he appeared in Nelson District Court yesterday.
Police investigate interference with hospital's pain medicine
6:04PM Tuesday August 26, 2008
Police have been called to investigate interference with pain relief medication in wards at Christchurch Hospital.
Someone has been diluting the drug or replacing it with water..
Christchurch police have confirmed controlled drugs at the Canterbury District Health Board have been tampered with over a month-long period.
The DHB contacted police after staff noticed pain relief medication was being diluted or replaced with water in Christchurch Hospital wards.
Detective Senior Sergeant David Harvey said today it was not yet known the exact number of drugs that were diluted.
He was also tight-lipped over the type of drug and how many patients were given the watered-down medication.
Mr Harvey said police were "actively working" with hospital administration staff and were looking at the process involved with accessing and dispensing the drugs.
The Doctors Health Advisory Service, a group that helps doctors with addictions, said nurses would have access to the drugs and they would have passed the medication on to doctors.
"Every DHB would have formal controls over the management of controlled drugs, such as opiates," director Edwin Whiteside said.
He said most DHBs would have a "double signature" requirement when dealing with drugs, as a check before they were administered to patients.
Dr Whiteside said doctors hooked on drugs as a result of the easy access were an "occupational hazard".
"I personally think DHBs have an obligation to support staff with addiction problems or dependence on chemicals.
"But of course if it's a security issue and drugs are going missing and being sold for example, then that's an entirely different disciplinary matter."
He said it was rare for doctors to use supplies from a medical practice or hospital and he had never heard of drugs being diluted or replaced.
"To me if the drug was contained in an ampoule it would be difficult to dilute it and replace it at that point, perhaps it's when the drug is being used with the patient and transferred from the ampoule, or vial over to an IV system, it may be easier to dilute it at that point.
"I think DHBs in particular, I think they should look at the potential for staff to use drugs for their own use, if they have a potential problem and maybe refer them to their occupational health unit or the doctors' health advisory service accordingly."
Christchurch Hospital general manager Mark Leggett said patient safety was the hospital's "main concern" and additional precautions had been put in place.
NZPA
"I dont care if you have progressive cancer and aids and cronic back pain, your buds are belonging to meh now!!!!, off to jail with you!!"
"the public was outraged today as the man was deined home detention and was sent to maximum security prison, the 57 year old is said to be in supprisingly high spritis that man had this to say: "The inmates are verry helpfull and sympithetic, I wish I had this quiality of bud on the outside"
Dr Whiteside said doctors hooked on drugs as a result of the easy access were an "occupational hazard".
"I personally think DHBs have an obligation to support staff with addiction problems or dependence on chemicals.
Hmm one of the top drug doctor's within the system , suggesting harm management , .
tony
offering addiction help right now isn't a go Tony, this news report should give you an idea....
Waiting lists send addicts back to life of crime
By KATIE WYLIE - The Press | Thursday, 28 August 2008
A new report shows that hard drug addicts are having to wait too long to enter recovery programmes, leading many to turn to a life of crime and prostitution.JOHN KIRK ANDERSON/The Press
OVERBURDENED PROGRAMME: A new report shows that hard drug addicts are having to wait too long to enter recovery programmes, leading many to turn to a life of crime and prostitution.
Hard-drug addicts are lapsing into lives of crime and prostitution while waiting up to eight months to access "poorly resourced and overburdened" treatment programmes, experts say.
A report from the National Addiction Centre, obtained exclusively by The Press, estimates that crime by opiate addicts awaiting treatment costs the country $286 million a year.
A 12-month course of addiction treatment with methadone costs about $5000.
The report estimates that almost 10,000 New Zealanders, including 1429 in Christchurch, are daily dependent on opiates such as heroin, morphine, homebake and opium from poppies.
About 4600 addicts are receiving methadone through opioid substitution treatment (OST) programmes, but demand far outweighs the resources available.
Waiting lists were a "significant problem" and addicts had "considerable ambivalence" about seeking treatment. Addicts were waiting an average of 90.3 days between their first presentation and their first dose of methadone at New Zealand's 18 treatment centres.
In Christchurch, non-priority addicts were waiting 94 days, with a 260-day wait in Otago (with interim methadone prescribing) and no service available on the West Coast because of a lack of resources.
Ministry of Health guidelines recommend a four-week wait.
Addiction experts have slammed the delays and say they could lead addicts back to lives of drug use, crime and prostitution.
"If those people are open to and willing to enter treatment, that's when we need to get them on to methadone, not six months later or even three weeks later," Needle Exchange Programme national co-ordinator Charles Henderson said.
"The horse could have bolted by then, thereby missing a very important chance to both improve the overall societal effects and certainly that individual's health."
Opiate addicts, whose addictions could cost about $1000 a week to maintain, were often engaged in crime, prostitution and drug abuse, experts said.
They were also 13 times more likely to die prematurely than their peers, and have health problems such as Aids and hepatitis B and C.
"Most people I know with opiate addictions, they don't like themselves either when they're in addiction. It's not a nice world," said National Addiction Centre lecturer Dr Daryle Deering.
Henderson said needle-exchange staff saw addicts with "abscesses that are taking calves apart and gaping holes in thighs" owing to squalid living conditions and unclean injecting behaviour.
"You've got the shackles of addiction and the shackles of procuring a black-market drug. Generally it's a fairly chaotic lifestyle in most areas prior to going on to treatment, but that treatment generally turns that around pretty quickly," he said.
Comments from addicts, including 43 Cantabrians, widely criticised aspects of the OST programme. One participant was "sick of liquid handcuffs" and withdrew, while another said: "People on the programme have very little control over their addiction or their lives. I don't want to be told to take a full dose every day."
Treatment centres reported that staff and pharmacist availability, clients not attending their appointments and waits for urine results contributed to the delays.
Alcohol and Drug Association chief executive Cate Kearney, also co-chairwoman of the National Committee for Addictions Treatment, said 90 days was "far too long" for people to wait but that population-based funding for district health boards did not account for regional variations in opiate addiction.
Christchurch had a well-documented opiate problem and higher rates of addiction than Auckland, she said.
The report, commissioned by the Ministry of Health for public release next week, recommends the OST programme be renewed. Deering said there was a "real opportunity" to bring opiate addiction under control with better resourcing. _________________ A pain free day the marijuana way.
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