Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - 
A SHOCKING new study has revealed the true extent of methadone programme failure in Scotland, with only a tiny proportion of addicts becoming drug-free through the heroin substitute.
Research has revealed that fewer than 4% of heroin addicts who are given methadone are drug-free less than three years after beginning treatment. Yet almost 30% of addicts who underwent treatment at a residential rehabilitation centre became drug-free over a similar period.
The new research has re-ignited the row over the effectiveness of the multi-million-pound methadone programme in Scotland. While advocates say it helps to stabilise addicts, reduce crime and prevent deaths, critics warn that it is failing to help addicts come off drugs.
Currently only one in 50 heroin users who wants to beat the addiction is offered a residential rehabilitation place, which can cost more than £400 a week and offers intense detoxification programmes. More than 20,000 people in Scotland are prescribed methadone as a means to wean them off heroin.
Figures released earlier this month show that at the end of March this year more than 800 people were waiting for rehabilitation treatment on the NHS, with more than 250 having waited over a year for help.
Opposition politicians yesterday called for more investment in residential rehabilitation services in Scotland in the wake of the new findings.
... ... ...Scottish Nationalist drugs spokesman Stewart Stevenson MSP said: “We know addicts want to get clean, and methadone can be a useful temporary stopgap to get people stable before they enter programmes that will get them clean.
“But we are using methadone for far too many addicts as a long-term way of managing their condition. We simply need more residential places and we need to get people into them quicker.”
The study, entitled Abstinence And Drug Abuse Treatment: Results From The Drug Outcome Research In Scotland, found that of 695 Scottish drug users who entered treatment for heroin addiction in 2001, only 3.4% of those who had been given methadone were drug-free 33 months later.
However, those who had entered residential rehabilitation programmes were significantly more successful, with 29.4% drug-free after the same time.
The study, carried out by academics from the University of Glasgow and Oxford Brookes University, will be published in the journal Drugs: Education, Prevention And Policy next month.
Lead author Professor Neil McKeg aney told the Sunday Herald that when the results of his study were compared to success rates south of the Border for methadone programmes, “the Scottish services aren’t achieving anywhere near the English services.”
Similar research carried out in England shows that almost 25% of addicts who are given methadone are drug-free after two years.
McKeganey said: “It is absolutely essential that we understand why it is that Scottish methadone services are achieving such a low rate compared to the English ones.
“It may well be ... that services have not really been thinking in terms of getting addicts off drugs, they have been thinking first and foremost about getting them stabilised on drugs.”
He emphasised that the vast majority of addicts coming forward for treatment want to be drug-free rather than take a substitute such as methadone, and questioned why public health officials have doggedly stuck to methadone treatment programmes when residential rehabilitation offers addicts a higher chance of becoming drug-free.
“I think we have to make absolutely sure that where addicts are receiving methadone in Scotland it is a prescription that is of clear therapeutic benefit for them ... if it isn’t helping them to become drug-free, then there is not a lot of point in continuing it.”
He called for more provision of residential services for drug addicts in Scotland, and for an inquiry into why the methadone programme is failing so badly. “It happens that the service we provide least frequently in Scotland is residential rehabilitation, and I think it is absolutely right that we now critically assess whether we ought to be providing more services of that kind,” he said. “It is going to be necessary to ask some pretty searching questions about the methadone programme as to who actually is benefiting from it.”
However, the research sparked a fiery response from the Scottish Executive, which said it was time to end the “unhelpful obsession” of trying to prove which approach is best. A spokeswoman for the justice department said it had spent £66.7 million in the past financial year on tackling drugs problems, including investment in residential detoxification and rehabilitation.
“Methadone prescribing is just one option – an option that allows people to stabilise their lives long enough to think about the next stage of their journey away from drugs,” she said. “There is no clear evidence that residential services achieve better outcomes generally than community-based services.
“Studies that do show better outcomes are not comparing like with like. ”
McKeganey hit back at the Executive’s response. He claimed its position was a “staggering reaction to a solid piece of research”.
“Clearly you are much better planning your services on the basis of what is effective, and the results of this research clearly shows that residential rehabilitation is successful,” he said.
“I think addicts and their families would expect the Executive to try and find the best treatment and encourage researchers to find out what works and what is effective.”
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Reproduced with permission from The Herald (Glasgow) © Newsquest (Herald & Times) Ltd
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