The State's largest drug treatment centre has urged doctors to be more careful in prescribing benzodiazepines due to their link to "nearly all" heroin-related deaths.
The Drug Treatment Centre Board (DTCB) warned yesterday, on the publication of its annual report for 2000, that more than half its clients were abusing benzodiazepines - which are normally prescribed for chronic anxiety or insomnia - along with other substances.
Dr John O'Connor, consultant psychiatrist with the centre, located at Dublin's Trinity Court, said: "There is no doubt in my mind that many substance abusers are doctor-shopping in order to satisfy their addiction."
Addicts on drug-maintenance programmes were using benzodiazepines to give them a "high" which they don't get from methadone alone, he said.
"Such users are much more likely to engage in anti-social behaviour, or turn to criminal behaviour or unsafe behaviour in terms of needle-sharing and unprotected sex."
He added: "Nearly all post-mortem deaths indicate they were using benzodiazepines with other drugs."
A committee of the Department of Health and Children, on which Dr O'Connor sits, is due to publish recommendations on the issue next month. Whatever it recommended, said Dr O'Connor, there was a need for greater vigilance among GPs on prescription.
The annual report showed the DTCB provided treatment for 1,034 people last year. The average client age was 26. Two clients were as young as 14.
Launching the report, the Minister for State with responsibility for the national drug strategy, Mr Eoin Ryan, praised the centre for emerging as "a model of best practice" after some difficult years when it attracted criticism from local residents and traders.
He said progress was being made on cutting waiting lists throughout the Eastern Regional Health Authority area. "The target is 6,000 treatment places by the end of this year and 6,500 by the end of next year," he said. Some 450 people remain on waiting lists, 280 of whom are in south- west Dublin.
Mr Ryan said the centre had "huge difficulties" in identifying a site for a treatment centre in the Tallaght/Clondalkin area.
However, he said, he believed local people were less opposed to the idea than before, and a new site had been identified "which we are hoping to develop".
The Minister added that hepatitis C was a "huge problem" with an 80 per cent prevalence rate in Dublin's drug-using population. "We want to expand the needle- exchange programmes to minimise the dangers but it's extremely difficult."
The DTCB has undergone major restructuring since 1999. This included the introduction of new services such as a dedicated women's health clinic, and also the provision of a "walk-in" rapid assessment.
Last year, there were 81,650 client visits to the centre, which provides methadone treatment for 17 per cent of the State's heroin users.
Dr O'Connor noted last year was the centre's busiest to date, with more than 1.5 million specimens analysed for drug abuse, an increase of 10 per cent on 1999. He added "we are still seeing a lot of new referrals, so it would seem there has not been a major decrease in the drugs problem".
The centre yesterday also launched a new website: www.addictionireland.ie
