Maintenance programmes are denied to addicted prisoners in Victoria

BMJ 1999;318:811 ( 20 March )

Letters

Maintenance programmes are denied to addicted prisoners in Victoria

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EDITOR $---$ In my role as a peer programme advisor (infection control, harm minimisation) and as a drugs and alcohol counsellorat a Melbourne centre with over 700 patients on methadone and300 on naltrexone I wonder at the prison system inVictoria.

We have no maintenance program for methadone, no needle exchange, and do not allow inmates to continue on naltrexone programmeswhen they enter prison. But we do provide harm minimisation sessions,mandatory HIV and hepatitis sessions, and bleach for injectingequipment.

If we are to go some way towards providing similar medical treatment to that provided in the community we should at leastallow prisoners to continue on methadone and the more recent naltrexoneprogrammes. Some of our patients who were taking naltrexone whenthey entered prison were denied further treatment. What happensif one of these patients lapses and we have a death from overdose?Is there not . . . [Full text of this article]

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