Opiate death risk warning

Drug users leaving methadone treatment have an almost four-fold increased risk of dying, a major study has found. Researchers have called for users to be encouraged to stay in treatment and offered post-treatment supervision in a bid to tackle the death toll.

The study, conducted among almost 7,000 drug users over a six-year period, also expressed concern at the high rate of prescription of benzodiazepines — legal tranquillisers — among those on methadone.

The research, to be published in the journal Addiction, said opiate addiction was a “chronic relapsing” problem, with more than half of those studied having five or more treatment episodes. It said few patients were retained in treatment and that they moved “in and out”. The study, conducted by experts from the Royal College of Surgeons and Trinity College, examined rates of mortality among users in methadone treatment and those who had left.