Meant to heal, but addicts die instead
09 Nov 2006
Annie Freeda Cruez
KUALA LUMPUR: Several drug addicts on Drug Substitution Therapy
(DST) have died.
But their deaths are not caused by the medicine prescribed to them
by doctors.
Instead, it was due to "doctor-hopping" the addicts would go to
several doctors to collect as much medication as they could.
They would then abuse the medication, which was meant for
therapeutic use, and die of an overdose or other
complications.
The current medication used for DST are buprenorphine (Subutex),
methadone and naltrexone.
Currently, there are an estimated 10,000 drug addicts on
buprenorphine and 1,500 on methadone.
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Thursday/National/20061109101827/Article/index_html