Dr. Des Crowley:

It is a bit of both. It is a public conversation that needs to be had. Addiction is a disease. It is a chronic relapsing disease and it should not have the stigma that it has. First, people should understand when they are coming and have problem drug use that they are coming with an illness for which they deserve compassion and to be dealt with like any other person who has a disease or an illness. Second, we need to train the GPs to pick up on cues. There are some cues, such as absenteeism and other issues regarding work, and it involves maybe adding those little questions to when we are having our normal consultations to draw out but that can only happen if one is non-judgmental about it.

The non-judgmental attitude is really important when we talk about relapse because that is a most difficult time for people to re-engage in services. They put in so much effort and there is so much attached to being drug free that relapse is a hugely difficult time for people. Re-engaging services is what prevents them from fatal overdosing and is what we need them to do but, because of the stigma attached, they will not re-link with services. That is obviously a huge problem.