Greece launches first methadone maintenance programme for inmates

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Greece launches first methadone maintenance programme for inmates

22 September 2014

Agios Stefanos prison in Patras, Greece is the proud new home of the country's very first "prison" methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) program, where inmates struggling with addiction can now be provided with proper treatment, medical care and compassion they so desperately require to treat their addictions while incarcerated.

The issues of substance abuse and addiction among prison inmates in Greece is no secret. A 1999 study of 861 randomly selected inmates from 10 correctional institutions in the country found that 33.6 percent reported injecting drugs, and of those, 60 percent had reported injecting while in prison. Not surprisingly, 54.7 percent of the inmates engaging in intravenous drug use during their stay in prison were incarcerated due to drug-related offenses. With statistics like those, it is abundantly clear that effective treatment options needed to be made available not just to the general public, but to those who are incarcerated in jails or prisons as well.

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