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June 15, 2006
Dying from drug overdose
Experts say that children are growing up in homes where serious drug misuse is part of their everyday lives by Audrey Gillan
A two-year-old boy was found dead in his bed after drinking his parents’ methadone, recently. Derek Alexander Doran’s body was discovered by his 25-year-old mother at their home in Elphinstone, East Lothian.
The Scottish newspaper The Sunday Mail reported that the child died after mistaking the sweet-tasting heroin substitute for a soft drink. It is unclear how he managed to open what should have been a childproof bottle top. Derek’s mother, Lisa Dodds, and his father, Derek Doran, 22, are both methadone users and have been questioned by the police.
Lothian and Borders police have not confirmed that it was the parents’ heroin substitute and said they were investigating how it came to be in the child’s possession.
Derek died some months back but the news of his death was revealed only recently. The newspaper reported that police received a toxicology report last week, which confirmed Derek had died from a methadone overdose. It said Ms Dodds’ other two children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been taken into care.
Last month it emerged that an 11-year-old girl from Glasgow was being treated in hospital for heroin addiction: she had collapsed at her school desk after smoking the drug. The revelation prompted ministers in the Scottish parliament to consider the removal of more children from drug-addicted parents after it emerged that her mother was a heroin addict.
A report released recently estimated that 60,000 children in Scotland are living in drug dependent households and an earlier study showed that more than 300 babies a year are born with substance addiction in Scotland.
Experts say that often children are growing up in homes where serious drug misuse is part of their everyday lives, they see their parents preparing, injecting and buying drugs. Professor Neil McKeganey, an expert on drug addiction in Scotland, last month advocated the introduction of an American-style scheme where addicted mothers have their children put up for adoption if they fail to kick their habit a year after giving birth.
Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said the death highlighted the need for a change of government policy on drug rehabilitation and called on the Scottish executive to stop “parking” addicts on methadone. “We’re living in a country where drug abuse has been allowed to eat away like a cancer at the heart of our society. Drug and methadone dependency have reached epidemic proportions with our social services left to pick up the pieces of government policy that lacks the will to tackle the issue head on.” n —Dawn/Guardian Service
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