Page 2772 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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The report of the committee very clearly sets out in its preamble that the aim of drug programs should be harm minimisation, that dealing with drug problems should be promoted in a non-threatening way, and that a methadone maintenance program is and should be promoted as a medical treatment program, not a social control or punishment regime. It is regrettable that Mrs Grassby in her dissenting report chose to ignore these basic principles and instead attack the notion that pharmacists could and should have a role to play in a diversified methadone treatment program. To state, as she does, that "pharmacies are primarily a commercial enterprise" demeans her contribution to the committee's deliberations. While pharmacies may be commercial enterprises, we trust and call on them to dispense medicines for our health and well-being. It is ridiculous to say that pharmacists cannot be trusted to have the well-being of their clients at heart. If indeed that were the case, whom would Mrs Grassby recommend that heart patients, diabetics and other drug dependent patients obtain their drugs from? The outpatients unit at Woden Valley Hospital, perhaps?
It cannot be overstated that the range of treatment options must be the widest possible, to maximise the benefit for all current and potential users of methadone programs. Canberra drug counselling services have long known that in the ACT we have drug problems at all economic and social levels and that drug habits are not confined to any one social group. Some of the people experiencing difficulties with the current program are in full-time employment and have family responsibilities. These people will benefit most from increasing the options of the availability of methadone, paying for their methadone and fitting their treatment program into a normal day's activities, rather than in some cases having to base their whole day on the availability of methadone at Woden Valley Hospital. That is how it should be. It is simply not appropriate that we ask people with drug dependency problems to lead unnatural lifestyles while they deal with their drug problems. We need to introduce programs that return normalcy to lives already interrupted by drugs to an undesirable degree. I therefore support the majority finding of the Drugs Committee that methadone should be available for the greatest number of people who currently depend on it.
Members, we have four options before us today. The first is that we note the report but do nothing about supporting the Drugs of Dependence (Amendment) Bills. This leaves us with the status quo - a position that I feel is indefensible, given the evidence put forward in the report that the current program is unworkable for most people. The second option is for us to support the Government's amendment Bill and reject Mrs Carnell's amendment Bill. That decision would increase the outlets available to people who need methadone treatment, but leave them within the parameters of the government health system. I do not agree with Mrs Grassby's view, expressed in her dissenting report, that this solution is the best solution because of a sad story she related about a methadone recipient in Sydney who received methadone treatment through a local pharmacy.
Mrs Grassby related that the person was murdered and his body not found for some five days. To lay blame for the delay in finding the body at the feet of the pharmacy involved, or to imply that pharmacies are less than caring about people with long-term drug problems, is indeed irresponsible. The Drugs Committee heard evidence of the failure rate of existing drug programs in the ACT. The reality is that, once a person leaves any methadone distribution point, it is not the responsibility of the clinic or provider to track them down and look after them.
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