Media's drug of choice

There is no danger of this columnist moving on to pastures new as PRO for the pharmaceutical sector, at any level from Big Pharma down to the local chemist. But the media's sudden autumn discovery of deepest sympathies for the poor oppressed heroin addicts of Dublin, victimised by a load of greedy pharmacists, did come as something of a shock. It was clearly symptomatic not of a rush of compassion but of the opportunity to put the boot into an unloved and not-especially-powerful occupational sub-group.

It was particularly shocking to hear the professional regulatory body, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, heaping opprobrium on the chemists who were now boycotting the methadone scheme, when the vast majority of pharmacists choose not to dispense methadone at all and don't appear to attract much criticism for this wanton neglect of the most pressing needs of society's most desperate yadda-yadda-yadda.

Apart from temporarily raising the profile of Paddy O'Gorman – he's able to talk to these people, you know? – the media's coverage of this story had little discernable sense or potential benefit to addicts. It was simply another bureaucratic row involving the despised HSE, to go alongside that with the equally despised but less-easily-kicked consultants. And the pharmacists' one had even more potential to feed some of the media's most insatiable addictions: high-horse moral outrage and the bit of “colour” achieved with the sad images and distinctive voices of struggling junkies.

Ireland continues to have shockingly poor treatment facilities for recovering heroin addicts, and the quasi-effective soother that is methadone is hardly the long-term answer for people who deserve a chance to rebuild their lives. You weren't likely to hear much about that amid the shallow and exploitative treatment of this story.