Friday 15 April 2011

I Think We Have Better Things To Spend Money On, Frankly

Sorry if that seems harsh, but…
Prisoners should be handed an anti-overdose drug when they leave jail in case they binge on heroin in their first days outside, the Government’s drug advisers said yesterday.
And if they do, and subsequently kill themselves, well, so what?
Professor Les Iversen, chairman of the advisory council, said a single injection of naloxone could revive a heroin addict from a coma. He wants it to be more widely used after figures showed that, on average, one in eight heroin–injecting prisoners overdose within two weeks of leaving jail and one in 200 die.

“Getting it as widely available as possible is the name of the game,” he said.

“It is really a magic medicine. Issuing naloxone kits to heroin addicts as they leave prison as a way of trying to save some of their lives.”
Are they lives we want to save? Put bluntly, at a time when money is tight, is it worth the cost?
Critics said last night that it could encourage addicts to take stronger doses of heroin, knowing they had an antidote.
Well, quite!
At £15 a time, it would cost the public hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund every year.
We can’t afford it. Even if it made sense, even if we were flush, I’d say it’s something we can’t afford.
Yesterday, David Liddell, a member of the advisory council and the Scottish Drugs Forum, said: “'You can’t recover if you’re dead’, is the line we’re backing on this. It should be seen as an important part of a recovery strategy to try to save as many lives as possible.
Over 500 drug-related deaths could be prevented through naloxone and other methods.”
We can spare 500 useless druggie wasters, though, can’t we? It’s not as if they are likely to be brain surgeons, is it?

18 comments:

Timdog said...

I think the short version is (in the words of Duke Nukem):

"Let God sort 'em out"

AntiCitizenOne said...

Why are we letting prisoners out of jail when they're still addicted to Heroin?

How is Heroin getting into Prison?

Answer those questions first then we can talk about other measures.

BTW I think the "War on Drugs" is possibly the most counter-productive thing ever.

AntiCitizenOne said...

Oh and talk about misleading title...

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-nudging-obesity-epidemic.html

Quiet_Man said...

@AntiCitizenOne

Supply and demand works just as well in prisons as outside, people are very ingenious when it comes to smuggling in their stash. Personally I'd make drugs freely available in prisons in the hope that they'd OD, might solve the problem of them coming out and committing crimes again.

Anonymous said...

The only counter argument is that it might prove cheaper than intensive treatment to save these parasites later...

RAB said...

They haven't thought this one through have they?

Shooting heroin tends to be a solitary experience. A wrap is bought and taken home, the works prepared and the dose administered. So how is a junkie going into a coma from an overdose going to get his antidote into his system quick enough?

Are we sure the Prof doesn't have a contract with the antidote Drug Company?

Anonymous said...

Hands up who cares?
These people are a waste of space
Jaded

Kendall said...

If £15 antidotes save a significant number of those '1 in 8' from riding an ambulance to hospital and taking up an NHS bed then it might not be a bad thing.

I don't know much about overdosing on heroin, but if only 1 in 200 are dying as it is, it sounds like they're able to seek out treatment. If this is a practical DIY solution then maybe it could save some money.

Anonymous said...

"Prisoners binge on Heroin in their first days outside" so some toerags kill themselves. He makes this sound like a bad thing! From my point of view it is win/win. They get "high" and kill themselves and society is rid of a load of scumbags who think the law applies to other people except when their "Yooman rites is infringed innit".

Captain Haddock said...

Let the totally useless scumbags kill themselves by their own vicious habits ..

£15.00 could buy a nourishing meal for a single pensioner, living alone & might just keep alive someone who has paid into the system all their working lives ..

I for one won't be losing any sleep at the thought of Druggies dying from overdoses ..

Angry Exile said...

As I understand it ODs tend to occur as a result of the strength being variable and from all the other shit mixed in to increase profit, a side effect of the drugs trade being a black market controlled by criminals, and one which I doubt exists when the junkies can get their mitts on morphine instead. Giving them a drug to buy them time if they pick up an iffy batch or misjudge its strength for whatever reason is just treating symptoms again. Wouldn't be necessary if the quality was as tightly regulated as the morphine you get post-op in hospital, which is essentially the exact same drug as heroin, but that's not going to happen as long as prohibition is the only policy anyone will ever consider.

In the meantime I wonder how long it'll be before an inferior black market version of this anti-overdose drug appears. I wonder also why heroin users get special treatment. Is anyone talking about the alcohol equivalent to stop a newly released prisoner getting shit faced on wifebeater and walking under a bus, or are the pissheads expected to control their own consumption and take the consequences if they can't or won't. I think I already know the answer, but if that's so for the boozers then why not just say the same for the heroin users. My libertarian inclination is to not object if they want to pump that stuff into their veins, but that doesn't extend to shielding them from the consequences of that choice.

English Viking said...

AE,

The reason so many OD after they get out of nick is because their tolerance for it has reduced significantly, because they had to reduce their intake whilst inside. Pricey stuff in the Nick.

When they get out, they shoot up the regular amount and BOOM.

Most OD's are not lethal, but result in an extended period of unconsciousness, severely slowed heart rate and extremely slow and shallow breathing. The main dangers are hypoxia, cardiac arrest and choking on tongue/vomit.

The antidote would almost certainly need to be administered by another person.

My personal preference for treating these people is enforced abstinence (not difficult, in a prison) with incremental, mandatory periods of imprisonment for repeat offenders.

The main source of contraband in prisons today is the Prison Officers. Punishment for those officers caught should be extreme ie 10 years, loss of pension/house. The flip-side should be that they are paid 4 times as much as they are now.

Hexe said...

Hmm, the subsequent session at the E&A costs a lot more than £15...

And last time I looked, being a smack addict didn't quite qualify for the death penalty, although, you'd be forgiven to think that it's so by design.

Maybe it's time to make ones mind up: either we care about addicts' health so much that we ban their drug and it results in unclean smack that makes the sick if they take it (what was that about 'caring' again?) or, we just say: so what, let them kill themselves, and then we don't need to faff around with jails and £15 OD kits.

English Viking said...

Hexe,

Their drug IS banned.

Captain Haddock said...

" ... we just say: so what, let them kill themselves, and then we don't need to faff around with jails and £15 OD kits" ...

Its a Win-Win solution which gets my vote every time ..

Angry Exile said...

The reason so many OD after they get out of nick is because their tolerance for it has reduced significantly, because they had to reduce their intake whilst inside. Pricey stuff in the Nick.

EV, yes, when I said "if they misjudge the strength for any reason" that's the sort of thing I had in mind. No doubt there are brighter ones who know this perfectly well but heroin doesn't come with a label on saying how strong it is and since black market supply means variable quality the junkie has a bit of a guessing game. Too little doesn't get the high he wants and too much risks an OD.

As I said, this is not a problem for inmates whose drug of choice is alcohol, which is regulated and comes with labels giving an accurate indication of its strength. It seems odd to me that we treat the two drugs and their respective users so differently - one is legal and socially acceptable, one is banned for in the interests of its users welfare despite being used routinely and safely in hospitals in vast amounts; released prisoners who use one are expected to regulate their own consumption and take the consequences if they fail while those who use the other are to be given kits to shield them from the consequences.

I'm just after a little consistency, but since it needs to be consistency on the part of government I'm not going to hold my breath.

JuliaM said...

"I think the short version is (in the words of Duke Nukem):

"Let God sort 'em out""


Amen!

"Why are we letting prisoners out of jail when they're still addicted to Heroin?

How is Heroin getting into Prison?"


I suspect the first answer is 'because the sentences are too short', and with Clarke in charge, that's unlike to change.

With the second, maybe because it helps to keep the prisoners calm, and so the staff turn a blind eye?

"The only counter argument is that it might prove cheaper than intensive treatment to save these parasites later..."

If the possible consequences of not doing this is lonely death, as RAB points out, there's your saving, right there!

"Are we sure the Prof doesn't have a contract with the antidote Drug Company?"

Good point!

JuliaM said...

"In the meantime I wonder how long it'll be before an inferior black market version of this anti-overdose drug appears."

The fact that it isn't already (or even anything faking that effect) proves there's no market for it.

Hardly surprising. Junkies aren't known for thinking 'long term'.

"Punishment for those officers caught should be extreme ie 10 years, loss of pension/house. The flip-side should be that they are paid 4 times as much as they are now."

Agreed!

"Maybe it's time to make ones mind up: either we care about addicts' health so much that we ban their drug and it results in unclean smack that makes the sick if they take it (what was that about 'caring' again?) or, we just say: so what, let them kill themselves, and then we don't need to faff around with jails and £15 OD kits."

I'd vote for the latter.

"... since it needs to be consistency on the part of government I'm not going to hold my breath."

Very wise!