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(Reuters Health) – An Australian study suggests that opioid users who are being treated for their drug addiction are less likely to meet the police or be charged with crimes.
Treatment – which may include methadone, buprenorphine or buprenorphine – naloxone – also delayed the onset of the first charge, especially when users spent more time in a continuous treatment program. But the benefits of the drugs decreased with time and when users came in and out of treatment, report the study's authors in The Lancet Public Health.
"Contact with the criminal justice system – both in terms of crime and imprisonment – among opioid-dependent people is badociated with a significant economic burden for society and has many negative impacts," he said. Natasa Gisev, lead author of the study, the National Research Center on Drugs and Alcohol at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said by email.
Drugs called opioid agonists are among the most widely used treatments in the world for opioid dependence, according to the World Health Organization. The researchers began to examine the impact of opioid agonist treatments on contact with the criminal justice system.
"All people who consume heroin and other drugs do not commit crimes," Gisev told Reuters Health. "In our study, 46% of people had no criminal convictions."
Gisev and his colleagues badyzed data from 10,744 opioid-addicted people entering treatment for the first time between 2004 and 2010 in New South Wales, where treatment is provided free at public clinics or penitentiaries. private clinics and community pharmacies.
The study used three databases to track treatment episodes, deaths, and criminal charges until December 2011.
The researchers found that 5,751 people, or 53.5%, registered with the OAT had been charged with a criminal offense during the follow-up period and 49% had no longer enrolled to treatment one year after the start of their treatment. Getting treatment was badociated with delaying first charge time.
But the delay effect of the load decreased about two years after the start of treatment. The number of charges has also increased along with the number of treatment episodes. Men, young people under the age of 25, and those who had more charges before treatment were more likely to face the forces of order again.
Overall, those who spent more time in continuous treatment and in follow – up programs had fewer charges.
"Although we have demonstrated that the OAT has significant benefits for reducing crime, it is also important to look at the context in which the offenses are committed," Gisev said. "There are many reasons to offend people, such as poverty, unemployment and social status, and this must also be taken into account to address the full scope of the problem."
"Many people who are trapped in opioid addiction are also victims of crime, so get money to buy drugs," said Tim Millar of the Center for Mental Health and security at the University of Manchester in the UK.
This study includes a large number of people, which is positive, and indicates that the treatment is all the more useful as the number of patients enrolled permanently is long, said Millar, who co-authored an accompanying editorial l & # 39; study. At the same time, it is stated that the badociation between treatment and crime is not simple.
"Do not believe that OAT is a waste of time because" it's only a matter of substituting one drug for another, "said Millar." OAT saves lives, makes up a step towards rebuilding lives and helping to reduce the impact of opioid addiction on communities. "
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2XIhSS0 and http://bit.ly/2XNDZ9w The Lancet Public Health, online June 11, 2019.
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