North Australian Opiate Medication Initiative

HUMAN RIGHTS EMERGENCY 3: Dependent opiate users desperately need North Australian Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI)

The situation for the 40 patients of Doctor Henry Pang clearly shows the need for an opiate medication initiative in the Northern Territory. The NT Government has the facilities, the staff and the pharmaceutical drugs available, all that is required is the will to allow dependent users to be prescribed opiate based drugs.

A 3 day a week clinic would be an ideal option for these 40 patients and other dependent opiate users who have been effected by the NT Chief Health Officer’s draconian stance on this issue. The clinic could provide a range of opiate based drugs to patients, including morphine, pethidine and methadone.

Some dependent users would benefit greatly from a heroin trial here in the Northern Territory, although that can not be made available without the approval of the Federal Government. The Network Against Prohibition demands that the NT Government immediately establish a North Australian Opiate Medication initiative that would be able to provide an adequate standard of care to Dr Pang’s patients and other dependent opiate users.

In the immediate future, NAP would like to see NAOMI as an integrated part of a comprehensive plan for the support of people with opiate and other drug dependencies, that would include residential and non-residential detox programmes, abstinence based services and appropriate peer based personal support organizations.

NAP Coordinator Gary Meyerhoff said “at the moment, a small number of drug users have access to buprenorphine only, the methadone program is inaccessible to drug users and the detox unit remains closed.”

Many dependent opiate users have been forced to switch to the relatively unproven drug buprenorphine. NAP members are concerned that this unknown drug is being used by the NT Government despite the evidence supporting the use of methadone and other opiate based drugs with opiate dependent people.

“It is alarming that the extensive marketing conducted by Reckitt Benkiser, makers of buprenorphine, appears to have been extremely successful from the company’s point of view. Large numbers of Territorians are now being transferred from safe and well known drugs to buprenorphine.”

NAP demands that the NT Government step in to establish the NAOMI program in the NT.

For more information call 0415 16 2525 or email napnt@yahoo.com