Treating addiction

The article by Strang et al¹ in the June edition of the Journal raises several important issues regarding what we do as GPs. I am an ex-prescriber and feel the College drive to improve treatment in this area may, on occasion, (in areas of low training take up) lead to a reduction in service. It also is ironic that it appears in the same edition as the leader by David Jewell² in which he talks of a GP as a generalist. I feel that as I do not have a ‘diploma’ in addiction and have not attended any College courses on this subject that I would ‘be in trouble’ should I prescribe and problems develop. I do not have this feeling in the many other areas in which I prescribe as a generalist (whether I have a diploma in that subject or not). I feel that the current trend will only make this feeling worse. I also find it interesting that those doctors who are prescribing are using lower doses than the ‘experts’ feel ideal — similar to other disease areas such as lipids and hypertension.