Drug treatments The Australian 12 December 2006

13 DECEMBER 2006

John Stapleton

THE street drug speed could be the best treatment for abusers of the popular party drug Ice, a visiting expert claimed yesterday. Dr John Grabowski, from the University of Texas, will be the keynote speaker at a conference in Sydney today on Ice use.

Speed, or dex-amphetamine sulphate, in itself poses high risks of dependency and abuse.

The conference has been called by the NSW government but is being attended by governments from around Australia, as well as international experts.

Dr Grabowski said one of the most promising treatments for Ice or meth-amphetamine use, associated with intense violent and psychotic episodes amongst habitual users, was the drug commonly known as speed. He said dex-amphetamine was already widely used for the treatment of Attention Deficit Disorder and research suggested it could stabilise Ice users.

Dr Grabowksi said while there were political difficulties in using a legal form of a drug to combat its illegal use, research was showing sufficiently positive results to move forward. Just as methadone, a form of opiate, was used for the treatment of heroin addiction, so the use of speed may become acceptable for the treatment of Ice addiction.

He said there was probably no other way to deal with some hard-core users creating problems for police and hospitals. ``There is a population for which I don't see any good alternative,'' he said.

He said substituting a legal for an illegal drug ``avoids all the problems of uncontrolled usage'' and was becoming an acceptable treatment in Canada, the US and the UK. Dr Grabowski said the ``compelling and frightening'' behaviour of people in the throws of excessive Ice use could be addressed by a stable regime of amphetamine use.

``Their bodies and brains become normal, there is a real sense of recovery,'' he said. ``I would recommend that this be examined carefully and be further implemented.''

Dr Grabowski praised the NSW government for its establishment of a drug injecting room and the creation of specialist treatment services for meth-amphetamine use. He said Australia had not reached the epidemic proportions of Ice use seen Asia or the US and it could be reduced by a progressive approach to the problem. He said he believed the future of Ice treatment lay in the development of a new form of amphetamine which can only be taken orally, rather than smoked or injected. The most promising treatment, currently known as NRP104, would be on the market within two years and would probably be widely adopted because unlike speed it could not be easily abused.

NSW Health Minister John Hatzistergos said his government was determined to find solutions to the Ice scourge ``to reduce crime, prevent family breakdown and help addicts get their life back together.''