Anger over prison Methadone

PRISONERS are being prescribed nearly $1.5 million of medication annually – and more than 100 are using the highly addictive Class B drug methadone.

 The revelation has angered Corrections Association of New Zealand president Beven Hanlon, who doesn't understand why prisoners' drug needs are being maintained while staffing budgets are being slashed.

"Here we are cutting staffing numbers around the country, running prisons with less staff, things are more dangerous, yet we're keeping inmates high for no real reason," Hanlon told Sunday News.

The prison guard said that in recent weeks he had become concerned about inmate methadone use after escorting inmates on the programme to prison health units where it's administered.

Some inmates had been on the drug – three times a day – for several years.

According to figures released to Sunday News under the Official Information Act, 142 inmates were prescribed methadone during the 2008-09 financial year, four more prisoners than the previous year.

Inmates on methadone can remain on the drug indefinitely.

"I just thought to myself, if they're cutting our budgets, why aren't they cutting this back? Doesn't it make sense that in prison we should be trying to wean people off drugs," Hanlon said.

Corrections' acting national health manager Deb Alleyne said prisoners were provided with "support and encouragement" to reduce their intake of methadone, or come off it, but ultimately the decision was theirs.

New Zealand's 8437 inmates also get free dental care which covers fillings and extractions, something Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar said was "ridiculous, stupid and crazy".

Alleyne said inmates addicted to opioids, like heroin, were the only prisoners eligible for methadone, and only if they were taking it before sentencing.

Corrections put strict controls around methadone use in 2006 after the drug-overdose of Neroli May Cuthbert on July 21, 2000, and claims the drug was being regurgitated by inmates and on-sold. Hanlon said those controls included having no methadone cut-off date for inmates.

In Australia, prison staff last month claimed methadone was being over-prescribed in their prisoners as a form of sedation and control. One in seven NSW inmates are on the drug. That was not the case in New Zealand, Alleyne said.

Other "highly tradable" drugs being prescribed in prisons were strong pain-killers, sedatives and anti-psychotic drugs. Despite this, Corrections has no database recording inmate prescriptions.

"Things come up all the time that we wouldn't have thought of as something that might be desirable to somebody else... they (inmates) find a use for it that never occurred to anybody. So occasionally one might get caught out," Alleyne said.

Strict controls are in place around the administering of methadone. Inmates get methadone directly from nurses on a one-on-one basis, under the supervision of guards.

They take it in liquid form with milk, and are separated from others for up to half an hour afterwards to "limit their ability to divert it elsewhere".