CONTROVERSIAL overdose kits given to heroin addicts have saved eight lives, leading to calls for them to be provided for thousands of addicts in Scotland.
About 300 of the kits – syringes loaded with the drug naloxone – have been given to addicts' friends and families under two Scottish pilot schemes. Similar action has sharply cut deaths in Berlin, San Francisco and Chicago.
The pilot schemes, in
Glasgow and South Lanarkshire, involve take-home doses of naloxone, a liquid that is injected and blocks the effects of opiates. It will keep a heroin user who is slipping into a potentially fatal coma alive for up to 20 minutes.
Under the pilots, which have been running since last April, with the cost of around £40,000 funded by local NHS boards, family members and friends of drug users are given training on how to detect the early signs of an overdose and on basic resuscitation techniques.
There have been six successful uses of the drug in Glasgow and a further two in South Lanarkshire.
But one of Scotland's leading drug experts has voiced grave fears that the drug will only encourage even more reckless drug abuse among Scotland's estimated 50,000 heroin addicts.
Neil McKeganey, professor of drug misuse research at Glasgow University, also believes giving drug users' families needles to take home will put children in danger and says the pilots are not being properly evaluated.
With the number of drug deaths hitting a record high of 421 in 2006 and a similar figure expected for 2007, experts say naloxone kits should be given to thousands of addicts' relatives and friends around the country.
Dr Jane Jay, chairwoman of the National Drug Death Forum, said: "This drug has, in a number of cases, made the difference between life and death. The cost is relatively low, but I would also ask 'what price a life'?"
She is now urging Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, to approve a national roll-out of naloxone among all heroin addicts in Scotland.
Prof McKeganey likened naloxone to the morning-after pill, arguing that, like the contraceptive, it encouraged "riskier behaviour".
He said: "If you are given something that negates the effect of risky behaviour, there's a chance that behaviour will become even riskier. In the case of drug addicts, the effects on communities can be even worse."
He added: "You are giving loaded syringes to families living chaotic lives. There is a real risk children will inject themselves or inject someone else."
Prof McKeganey claimed it was "inappropriate" that the Glasgow pilot was being evaluated by the Scottish Drug Forum, which is responsible for training under the scheme.
"You cannot have something so risky evaluated by a body that is involved in delivering the project," he said.
The Scottish Government said it would watch the results of the evaluations with interest.
The full article contains 482 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
