Cash for safe drug injection "off mark"

How about getting these people into treatment? Do they have waiting lists for treatment in Australia?

...Jann Stuckey said the Queensland Injectors Health Network was distributing flyers headed: "Wanna make some cash?"

They offered $110 cash payments to intravenous drug users willing to teach others safe injecting techniques, or, "learn a bit, share a bit and make a bit".

Ms Stuckey said it was not a responsible way to deliver a harm minimisation program.

"To pay drug addicts in this manner, knowing that the $110 will almost certainly be their next hit, is grossly irresponsible," she told reporters on Tuesday.

Ms Stuckey said she believed the program was not effective because it did not focus on getting people off drugs.

"Without that support, these facilities are nothing more than needle hand-outs," she said.

"The public have for many years been led to believe these are needle exchanges, and sadly, this is not true."

Premier Anna Bligh said Queensland Health had ordered the advertisements be withdrawn at least six months ago.

She agreed the program, jointly funded by the state and commonwealth governments, would offend some people, but said "unconventional" methods were sometimes required.

"Sometimes they have to go to extreme lengths to engage with these people," Ms Bligh said.

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How many drinks is too many? | The Daily Telegraph

I've been in a couple discussions over the past few days about federal drinking guidelines and what constitutes risky drinking. It just happens that Australia is reviewing their drinking guidelines. Of special concern are pregnant women and young women. Their drinking guidelines for healthy people between 18 and 64 are as follows:

For men: No more than 4 Standard Drinks a day on average and no more than 6 Standard Drinks on any one day. One or two alcohol-free days per week.

For women: No more than 2 Standard Drinks a day on average and no more than 4 Standard Drinks on any one day. One or two alcohol-free days per week.

*These drinks should be spread over several hours. For example, men should have no more than 2 standard drinks in the first hour and 1 per hour after that. Women should have no more than 1 standard drink per hour.

Homelessness a cause, not a result of drug abuse

This article has gotten a lot of attention today. It runs counter to my admittedly biased experience and the experience of colleague who work in settings focused on homelessness. Note that it uses the term substance abuse rather than dependence. It's easy to believe that people with a diagnosis of substance abuse may have developed problems after becoming homeless. I find it more difficult to believe that people with substance dependence would have developed their problem only after becoming homeless.

It will be interesting to see the actual report and analysis of it:

A report on homelessness in Melbourne has shattered two key myths: that substance abuse and mental illness are the major reasons why people become homeless....

About 43 per cent had problems with substance use while 30 per cent reported mental health problems. Of these, 66 per cent and 53 per cent respectively had developed the problems after becoming homeless.

Alcoholics forced into hospital treatment

Australia is piloting a program that commits their most severe addicts and alcoholics for 28 days. Interesting in light of Australia's embrace of harm reduction:

HEAVILY-addicted drug users and alcoholics will be forced to have treatment in hospital under a two-year pilot proposed by the New South Wales Government.

The trial, with up to 28 days of involuntary care at Nepean Hospital, would be a "circuit breaker" for the most severely addicted, state Health Minister John Hatzistergos said today.

"The four-bed service at Nepean Hospital will aim to break the addiction cycle for alcoholics and long-term entrenched drug users, before they are referred to longer-term treatment and rehabilitation with community support and follow-up," he said.

"We expect up to 50 patients a year from western Sydney will be treated in the four-bed secure unit."

The Government is drafting changes to the Inebriates Act 1912 to enable the trial to take place.

The changes would allow medical practitioners to seek a court order referring a severely drug- or alcohol-dependent person to compulsory treatment.

Speed a promising treatment for ice addiction: expert

More hope and optimism from Australia. About these "hard-core users" for whom there is no "good alternative"--were they ever offered treatment on demand of reasonable intensity and duration?

John Grabowski, from the University of Texas, will be the keynote speaker at a conference in Sydney today on ice use.

Speed, or dex-amphetamine sulphate, poses a high risk of dependency and abuse.

The conference has been called by the NSW Government and is being attended by government representatives from around Australia and international experts.

Dr Grabowski said one of the most promising treatments for ice, or meth-amphetamine - associated with intense violent and psychotic episodes among habitual users - was the drug commonly known as speed. He said dex-amphetamine was already widely used for the treatment of Attention Deficit Disorder and research suggested it could stabilise Ice users.

Dr Grabowksi said that while there were political difficulties in using a legal form of a drug to combat its illegal use, research was showing sufficiently positive results to move forward. Just as methadone, a form of opiate, was used for the treatment of heroin addiction, so the use of speed may become acceptable for the treatment of Ice addiction.

He said there was probably no other way to deal with some hard-core users creating problems for police and hospitals. "There is a population for which I don't see any good alternative," he said.

Ice addicts flood injection rooms

A safe injection center in Australia is experiencing unanticipated problems with meth addicts:

Injecting centre medical director Ingrid van Beek said eight per cent of the 220 addicts using the centre each day were injecting ice - more than twice the number 18 months ago.

"Ice changes people's behaviour in such a dramatic way and can be quite scary,'' she said. '

"People become incredibly strong and quite aggressive, and that's what makes the impact of this drug greater.''

Staff had undergone additional training to manage abusive behaviour among ice addicts and to identify the early signs of psychosis, Ms van Beek said.

"Staff have to be aware of how to manage that sort of crisis situation, and our staff are specially trained in that.''

Ms van Beek said that if people showed sings of emerging psychosis, they were counselled and not allowed to enter the centre.

The Sunday Telegraph approached several addicts outside the injecting centre who admitted to using ice inside.

One man said staff did not check the type of drug he injected.

"I just don't tell them. They don't care; they just write you down on a piece of paper,'' he said.

"You just say, `I'm doing hammer (heroin)' and go boom, boom quickly. Just keep it quiet.''

Another addict, calling himself Ace, said: "Hell yeah, bro, it's a proper sealed joint in there with security guards and all. You can do what you want.

"It's amnesty once you cross the door; cops can't touch you.''

A security guard at the Mansions nightclub, across the road, said ice users were often seen stumbling on to the street, drug-fuelled and aggressive.

"They must be on ice - they're screaming and ranting and raving,'' he said.