BMJ 1996;313:1481-1482 (7 December)

Letters

Treatment in general practice can be successful

EDITOR,--We are not surprised that John Strang and colleagues found that prescribing of injectable methadone was widespread and was prevalent in non-specialist settings.1 At our practice we receive many requests from drug users to prescribe injectable methadone as well as other replacement drugs at higher doses than those recommended by the specialist service protocols or, indeed, the prescribing guidelines suggested by the Department of Health. This position is partly forced on us by the limited prescribing practices of the local specialist services, which often seem unwilling to support or take on the care of drug users whose needs are complex and fall outside the accepted criteria for those who are perhaps best managed in general practice.

We have often taken on such drug users, because from a public health and client centred perspective the options of continued and increased harm, both through continued consumption of drugs obtained on the black . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Prescribing injectable and oral methadone to opiate addicts: results from the 1995 national postal survey of community pharmacies in England and Wales
John Strang, Janie Sheridan, and Nick Barber
BMJ 1996 313: 270-272. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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