Multiparous women: a key target population for smoking intervention?

from McKeganey are that drug treatment services have been very successful in recruiting drug users, that methadone has now overwhelmed the provision of other drug treatment services in Scotland and that the expansion of methadone services has occurred without clear evidence of the benefits of that provision. Whilst there remains no accurate data on the number of drug users prescribedmethadone in Scotland, research undertaken by the Scottish Executive in 2005 estimates that the number of drug users prescribed methadone in 2004 was 19227. It is thought that that figure has increased in the period following this work and may now be closer to 22,224.6 Since Scotland has an estimated total problem drug using population of around 51,000,7 then on the basis that it is unlikely that more than half of the total addict population are in treatment, it would appear that virtually all problem drug users in Scotland in treatment are indeed being prescribed methadone. By contrast, Scotland has only minimal provision of residential rehabilitation services. It is these latter services that our wider research has shown to be much more closely associated with drug users becoming drug free.8 It has been frequently stated in Scotland, and reiterated in the newdrug strategy, that no one treatment suits all addicts. In reality, the situationwe face within Scotland is precisely the opposite of that statement in which thevastmajorityofdrugusers seeking treatmentare indeedprovided with methadone. Commenting on that state of affairs in no way conflicts with the contents of our paper but is entirely congruent with our call for a mixed economy of drug treatment services.