More putting out fires with petrol:

There have been many press reports this week of the recent "discovery" that Dihydrocodeine, in the form of DF118's, is at least as effective as Methadone in "treating" opiate dependency. This is no discovery at all - all the addicts that I have mentioned this story to have yawned politely and made comments like "now tell me something that I don't know".

Of course any opiate or opioid drug will serve to assuage the symptoms of opiate withdrawal - whether or not giving an opiate user such a drug constitutes "treatment" is another matter. It seems that if a doctor in a drug service hands out Methadone for example then that is "treatment" - providing of course that reams of paperwork have been filled in and certain procedures have been followed.

If an addict was to buy the same amount of the same drug on the street - then this constitutes dealing and the supplier is liable to lengthy prison sentence - up to life imprisonment in fact!

In other words if a doctor does it then it's treatment, harm reduction etc and a good thing but if I do it then it's a very bad thing. Of course the addict's body would not differentiate between the "good" methadone and "bad" methadone - it would react exactly the same and the effects would be the same.

Coming back to DF118's - Doctors in the UK seem more than happy to hand this medication out like sweeties, I can remember doing a straw poll in a prison where I worked that showed that the incidence of back pain requiring Dihydrocodeine was around 20 times the expected average figure in the community.

On one hand these were young men in their 20's and 30's on the other hand many of them had a long history of drug dependency, however they all knew that Dihydrocodeine was an opiate type drug and they were not taking it to treat their addictions either, more to feed them.

The fact is that these drugs have changed hands on the streets for many years - with most of the supply being diverted from legally prescribed sources. Addicts have known about this, so have many drugs workers, counsellors etc.

I find it rather alarming that a "scientist" discovers what has been obvious to everyone else for years and suddenly it's a newsworthy piece of "new research".

So much for learning from our clients.

Yoof of today!

We definitely seem to have entered the silly season in the run up to Christmas. In the past week I have received several inquiries from the press who all seem to think that I must have some kind of crystal ball or arcane knowledge about "young people". I have been asked about young people and AA/NA - “is it trendy for young people to go to 12 step meetings now that Lindsay Lohan has admitted that she is going to meetings?”

Who cares if it is “trendy” or not, they are missing the point – its about saving lives, not fashion! Is coronary care trendy? Are A & E departments trendy? I have to ask myself what kind of rarefied atmosphere do these guys live in? Have they put something in the water in Wapping?

Lindsay Lohan is living in California, I live in South Yorkshire. Young people in California do lots of things that haven't caught on over here – surfing for one – and there are huge cultural differences in the way addiction and recovery are viewed over here and there.

The end result is that young people do go to AA/NA meetings in the US – especially California, while over here in the main they don't.

Most “addicts” seem to turn up in NA at around the age of 30 and it's around 40 for AA. There are of course exceptions to this rule.

I believe that one of the causes of this is the marked reluctance on the part of treatment providers in the UK to properly diagnose alcohol and other drug use in young people.

In the main the attitude seems to be that alcohol and other drug use is symptomatic of developmental problems rather than a condition that requires proper diagnosis and treatment in it's own right. In fact there are very few services in the UK providing proper addiction treatment for “young people”. Our very politically correct practitioners prefer to treat the age rather than the disease.

Then I would say that wouldn't I? I am a grumpy old addict after all!