IN DEFENCE OF HEROIN MAINTENANCE

A User's Perspective

by Maureen Laverty.

In March 1991 I left my home in Scotland, taking only a bag of clothes for myself and boarded a coach to Liverpool where I desperately hoped to find help for my heroin addiction. At this stage my partner was again incarcerated for an offence incurred supporting our habits. The reason I came to Merseyside was in hope of receiving a different type of treatment, as all other past attempts to stay off drugs had failed miserably and like so many women I'd been in jail with, I did not want to lose my baby.

In September 1991 after six months on the waiting list my partner and I were accepted by the Victoria Road Drug Dependency Unit in Widnes. Within weeks on the programme our health improved considerably. I must emphasise that the diamorphine treatment pioneered by Dr John Marks at the Chapel Street Clinic in Widnes has definitely prolonged and enhanced my life for the past four years. I have remained stable, able to concentrate on being a good parent and law-abiding citizen. And now that my daughter has settled happily into school I have started a part-time university degree.

Now our future is in jeopardy due to changes in NHS policy and we are terrified at our future prospects. Last June, due to changes in the structure of the NHS, North Cheshire Health Authority decided it would be more cost effective to prescribe methadone as opposed to diamorphine. I was opposed both on an individual basis, as in the past methadone has made me worse, and because of the harm methadone sold on the street has already done in Warrington.

As a result in November 1994 a group of the clients decided to form a drug users union with a view to having a voice at local and national level and perhaps influence policy decisions affecting the range of treatments available to addicts. Frequently drug users are frowned upon, but it has been proved beyond doubt that given the correct treatment we can lead normal law-abiding lives benefiting not only the addict and their family, but society as a whole. The clinic staff have offered us alternative medication but I am contended and healthy on my current diamorhpine treatment and do not wish to change to drugs which will be detrimental to my well-being.

In June last year I also started corresponding with the relevant complaints department within the Warrington Community Health NHS Trust, with my local MP, a solicitor and many other agencies and individuals whom I thought maybe able to help - but to no avail. I met with the chief executive of North Cheshire Health Authority and attended as many meetings and conferences as I possibly could, because of my family's future is seriously threatened by these prescribing changes.

Apart from the dozens of letters of correspondence with North Cheshire Health Authority and Warrington Community Health NHS Trust my local MP, Mike Hall, has written to the doctor concerned, Dr Ivor Edwards, who ironically advocated on the television the dia-morphine treatment he is now against. It would appear the NHS is no longer about improving the health of the nation but more about the business of saving money regardless of the quality of life. The prospect of reverting to criminality terrorises me and creates stress which is unbearable. For four years I thrived on treatment that prolonged my life and now that life line is being removed. Warrington is becoming like Glasgow, my native city, where there have been two deaths per week from methadone/Temazepam cocktails since 1990. (Scotland on Sunday, Summer 1995).

u For statistics on UK heroin and methadone related deaths, see the table in this article.  html 1995 drugtext web-lab