Drugs in Prison: Number of Qld prisoners testing positive doubles as jailed addicts turn to prescription opiate buprenorphine
ABC News reports on the rising use of prescription opiates in QLD prisons, with comments by NDARC Director Michael Farrell.
The number of Queensland prisoners testing positive to drugs has doubled in the last year, with a prescription opiate known in prison as "subbies" increasingly becoming the drug of choice.
Experts say Queensland has the nation's worst access to drug treatment programs, and figures obtained by the ABC show desperate prisoners are smuggling in buprenorphine, which, like methadone, is used to treat drug dependence.