Treatment in prison, not drugs
Much of the media response to the announcement that the Home Office had settled with drug-using offenders denied methadone treatment in prison was ludicrous. The impression given was that prisoners had sued the Home Office for not allowing them to use drugs in prison – the implication being that the ‘drugs’ involved were street drugs, either smuggled in from outside or obtained illicitly inside.
Not surprisingly there was a deal of outrage about this, but some of the comments reported by the media came from those who must have known what the real situation was and simply used the occasion for some political point-scoring.
The truth is that many of these were inmates who had been on community methadone programmes prior to imprisonment, but were denied this treatment once inside and left to go ‘cold turkey’.
The implications of the decision are significant because of the very high rates of chronic drug use among prisoners; trying to manage mass methadone dispensing regimes inside a prison would be a major challenge, but one that needs to be examined – and of course, there are other options such as buprenorphine.
Two key strands of government drug policy intersect here. The first is to reduce drug-related death: among those at the top of the risk tree are newly-released offenders whose tolerance has dropped. The second, is of course to break the link between drugs and crime. Yet the decision to cut the prison drug treatment budget because of NHS deficits, as revealed in the current issue of Druglink, threatens to undermine both.
3 comments:
Re: 'trying to manage mass methadone dispensing regimes inside a prison would be a major challenge, but one that needs to be examined – and of course, there are other options such as buprenorphine.'
Just because a problem is large logistically does not mean it can not be addressed. It needs to be funded properly and managed efficiently. The problem is not restricted to the prison service however. Many drug users either leave hospital treatment or do not attend for in-patient treatment asthey fear being denied substitute medication whilst in treatment.
I think the issue is not whether or not it can be managed, as it has to be. The NTA have set clear guidelines for treatment and 'some' prisons are disrupting that process.
If the Home Office want us to work effectively managing offenders in the Criminal Justice System then they need to inforce a uniform treatment system within the prison health care systems and not allow for variances based on geographics.
Effective continuation of care should flow in and out of the prison system where the target popluation for the Drugs Intervnetion project travel. Stop start treatment only adds to the flow of chaos we are working hard at stemming.
John Reid needs to act on this and act now, a new policy for the treatment of offenders need to be inforced and managed strictly as are the same for DIP's and CARAT's.
Why is the health care exempt from this? A retorical question to end on.
Scott - Senior Practioner Reading DIP
The Hme office have no control over the PCT Health care services they are left to do as they please . its a moncary on all the good work Prison Drug services do and Community Services do.
The Prison Service need to take control back off the Health Care departments and manage the situation properly before its too late and something major happens.
Post a Comment