Heroin overdose antidote should be given to prisoners, ministers told

The government's official drug advisers say 'magic medicine' naloxone could save 500 lives a year
Alan Travis, home affairs editor

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 April 2011 14.44 BST

One in eight prisoners take a heroin overdose within two weeks of leaving jail, Les Iversen said.

Photograph: Mykel Nicolaou/Rex Features

The government's official drug advisers are urging ministers to provide all prisoners at risk of overdosing with a "magic medicine" that could save up to 500 lives a year.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) wants all prisoners leaving jail in Britain handed packs of naloxone, a drug that reverses the symptoms of a morphine or heroin overdose for 45 minutes, which could be long enough to get emergency treatment.
Professor Les Iversen, the ACMD chairman, is pressing Home Office and Department of Health ministers to make the drug available to prisoners across England and Wales.
One in eight prisoners take a heroin overdose within two weeks of their release. Recent medical research suggests the increased risk for overdose for prisoners on release is most likely related to them taking heroin when they have a low tolerance to the drug, following a period of non-use or reduced use behind bars.
"A single injection can bring them back to life again. It really is a magic medicine," Iversen told an open meeting of the ACMD in London. "It is safe and it is very unlikely to be misused as it has the opposite effects to the opiates." He said about one in 200 heroin injectors died within a fortnight of leaving prison.
Scotland is pioneering the use of the drug to tackle overdose-related deaths. The Scottish government is about to spend £500,000 to fund the distribution of 10,000 units of naloxone in kits which can be administered by family members and carers who can be trained to inject the antidote.
David Liddell of the Scottish Drugs Forum told the ACMD meeting in London that Scotland had the highest drug-related death rate in Europe. "Quite a number of the 500 drug-related deaths a year in Scotland could be prevented by the use of naloxone," he said.
The kits are distributed in Scotland through needle exchanges as well as to prisoners thought to be at risk. More than half the 450 regular users of the Inverness needle exchange are being given naloxone kits.
"You can't recover if you are dead. This should be seen as part of the recovery approach to drug treatment. I would urge other parts of the UK to look at this situation," said Liddell.
The pilot schemes in Scotland have had critics. Professor Neil McKeganey, of Glasgow University's Centre for Drug Misuse Research, has said: "There is a real possibility that some addicts will be prepared to use higher dosages of heroin, confident that they can reverse the effects if they need to."
But the government's drug experts have been impressed by the results of a London pilot scheme conducted for the National Treatment Agency. The Welsh assembly also established some "demonstration sites" for take-home naloxone about 18 months ago.
Iversen said there were legal issues with the national availability of naloxone. But it was important to get the kits to family or friends. "If the user keels over he can't inject himself."

* This article was amended on 13 April 2011. The original sub-heading referred to naxolone. This has been corrected.

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