‘Here’s How’.
The Irish political podcast presented by journalist and author William Campbell (above) looks at drugs.
William writes:
Addiction specialist Dr Garrett McGovern talks to Here’s How, about the plans for injecting rooms, and more radical suggestions to reduce the harm of drug addiction. McGovern treats addicts every day in his practice in Priority Medical Clinic, but opposes the criminalisation of drug use. Full audio here.
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Interesting.
I can’t resist it, he looks like a candidate for the AAA.
Dr Garrett McGovern is a one making machine of course he supports the criminalisation of drug users he makes a fortune from people being made do rehab and he is also the muppet that pushes the methadone program.
Except it says he opposes the criminalisation of drug users.
Apologies i misread, i really don’t like to take the opinion of a man who thinks best practice for rehab is to give someone a drug stronger then the drug they where initially on.
while the posession, supply, manufacture and preparation of drugs are illegal, the actual taking of a drug is not and it is deemed to be a medical issue. someone’s addiction is their shell, it’s their defence mechanism and you need to be careful before you dick around with someone’s ability to cope in that you need to put a safety net in place beforehand.
as for the methadone programme, there are lots of studies that indicate more positive outcomes for those on methadone than not. obviously it has problems in that it’s not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution and probably doesn’t get reviewed enough but any intervention that reduces harm is ok in my book.
It’s good in that it’s legal and prescribed.
Just like heroin would be less harmful if it was prescribed by a health professional, and free from the impurities that street heroin contain.
+1
very true. in the uk they have a clean, injectable opiate programme and the outcome studies from this treatment are far better than for methadone.
I get what you are saying scottser but i have heard from multiple sources that because it is stronger that a lot of the time it is being sold on and the funds used to buy heroin. Methadone is never going to help addicts, i have seen it completely destroyed one of my mates who really needs phycological help but is just given this as a band aid. If we legalised some drugs and decriminalised others we would have more time and resources to help people who really need it.
+1 on all of this
i hear ya drogg, but i wouldn’t make up my mind on the entire programme based on one person’s experience. besides it sounds like your mate was in need of way more than methadone. if it was psychiatric treatment he needed and didn’t get, that’s another thing altogether and all too often people with addiction problems are either misdiagnosed or not treated at all.
i worked as a researcher on this: http://www.drugs.ie/resourcesfiles/research/2009/ROSIE3-YearReport.pdf
it remains the last word on treatment outcomes for methadone users. i do hope your mate gets better btw.
oh and methadone is indeed bought and sold or traded for heroin. heroin will stay in your system for about 5 days and you might be asked to provide a urine sample every 7 days. so you sell enough for a baggie and turn on for the weekend knowing you can provide another clean sample in 7 days time.
great podcast.makes a joke out of the lowbrow, safe,chatfest radio that well funded RTE produces.
Started listening, but gave up.
Anything I haven’t heard before?
Sensible people think we should decriminalise and employ common sense, harm reducing programmes where necessary, and driveling imbeciles thinks drugs are bad and don’t want a zombie apocalypse to threaten their children’s future – That sort of thing?
Yes.
No.
Thanks lads, I thought as much!
I put a lot of thought into that response, glad to see it was to good use.