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SCMP Reporter

Methadone treatment does not help drug abusers lead normal, productive lives, a study has found.

  Legislators were told that the study, published today, reveals that the methadone programme was 'not particularly helpful to drug addicts in improving their employment status, reducing the use of needles or helping them to abstain from drugs'.

  It was also of little help stopping drug abusers committing crimes, the analysis by the Legco Secretariat's research and library services division reveals.

   The methadone treatment programme was started in 1972 by the Health Department.

   More than 60 per cent of drug abusers have sought treatment in the last decade.

   Up to last year, 10,000 addicts had enlisted at the 21 government clinics.

  One of the scheme's aims is to help drug addicts reduce their demand for heroin.

  But the report, presented to a joint meeting of Legco's health services and security panels, also reveals: 'The programme may not be adequate in helping them to have normal and productive lifestyles. There is no improvement in their employment status after drug abusers join various treatment programmes.'   According to the Narcotics Division's figures, only 227 patients have been successfully treated with the replacement drug since the implementation of the programme.

  But almost 50 per cent of patients on methadone have stayed with the programme for more than 15 years.

  'The large number of drop-outs and re-admissions of addicts suggests that the patients are not maintained on the programme in a stable manner,' the report says.

  It also found that the scheme had failed to help reduce the rate of criminal offences committed by drug abusers.

  A comparison of conviction rates between people who had recently joined the programme, and those who had been with it for many years, indicated that the latter committed many more offences than the former.

  'Again . . . it can be inferred that the methadone programme does not help to reduce the crime rate,' the report says.

  Some social workers have urged the Government to review, if not to stop, the methadone treatment because, they claim, the findings show the scheme is not working.

  Democratic Party legislator John Tse Wing-ling claims that the scheme is not cost-effective.

   More than $29 million was spent on it last year.

  But Health Department spokesmen insist the scheme aims to provide addicts with a 'readily accessible, legal and medically safe' alternative to continued, self-administration of heroin.

    They also maintain that the number of crimes committed to obtain money to buy heroin can be reduced when methadone is being taken.



Methadone treatment fails to cure heroin users