Maybe it's true that only 10% kicked the addiction. But, the rest were kept off the streets and did not have to steal to get their smack money. Best of all, they got free needles to shoot up with, stemming the spread of AIDS and heppatitus C. All told, I think it is a good program and we should do more of it.

What a mean-spirited post! These poor bastards have been stealing and selling their bodies for a little peace, the Canadian government decides to see if they can do something positive for them, and you send up a straw argument about abstinence to gainsay the whole experiment.

I say, give the junkies whatever they want, just stop their suffering, and their need to create suffering in the rest of us. Just remember, any junkie left nodding in a Vancouver shoot-up room will not be stealing the radio out of my car to get his next shot. And, whatever you think, that is an unqualified GOOD THING.

Michael,and Iguana: with the government giving junkies heroin, their long-term fate as junkies are more than likely sealed. When the govt.-supplied heroin is no longer available (two years in this case) the junkie goes back to stealing your car radio, selling his/her body, sharing needles, etc. What then?

Quite possibly this: the govt. decides it will extend the experiment into an adopted policy and program, of giving heroin to addicts, ad infinitum. End of discussion? Hardly. The implications are fairly staggering. You are both in effect endorsing a permanent continuation of the government giving heroin to junkies "to keep them off the streets," with implied lip service to suspect "treatment programs" that try to wean them off heroin at the same time they're shoooting up government heroin three times daily (this is the current NAOMI regimen).

I think the conversation about valid public polciy responses to chronic heroin addiction needs to include treatments other than more heroin, and methadone. You should also know that several prominent Canadian public health officials are opposed to the NAOMI scheme.

Michael - I think it is fairly "mean-spirited" to have such low expectations for junkies, actually. A life as an government-enabled heroin addict, or any other kind of heroin addict, is a tragic and wasted life. Could we inject a little morality into the conversation here? "Harm reduction" = wasted lives. That is not why The Creator put us on earth.

Maybe the best approach would be something like this:voluntary, or in qualifying instances, court-ordered "confinement" in a "clean" house with trained medical, psychological and security personnel; to help addicts through withdrawl. I think the $8.1 million (Canadian) being spent on the NAOMI heroin and methadone study would be better spent on some variation of the "clean house confinement and treatment" plan.

At least junkies could emerge clean, and then be better-prepared to face the challenges of staying clean, as compared to never getting clean to begin with, thanks to the steady flow of government heroin.

Matt, you show the same insensitivity, and resort to strawman argument, that all zealots have shown over this issue. Of course abstinence is to be strived for, and indeed it is in the Canadian program. The issue is the attempt to use heroin instead of methadone to maintain those who are not yet ready to enter the drug free mainstream.

The only truthful argument against this experiment is that it is possible that these addicts will enjoy their medicine, as it is an article of faith in the addiction treatment world that methodone is not enjoyable, but heroin is. If, two years down the road, you and yours are successful in stopping this heroin trial, these patients can then go on, or back, to methodone. The only truly important thing in the world of addiction treatment is to get addicts into treatment - any kind of treatment at all. Your idea of compulsory treatment may be satisfying to state, but any view into previous and current compulsory treatment schemes must include the observation that, in an area which shown little success, compulsory abstinence has the lowest chance of success. Even leaving addicts in the street has shown a higher rate of remission than compulsory treatment.

The issue, and the idea, is to attract addicts into treatment. This study will attempt to find out if more addicts can be attracted into treatment with heroin than has been the case with methadone. You come with high dudgeon about these people shooting up heroin on the government dime. Are you against them receiving government methadone as well?

Michael, if, as you seem to wish, the government options were curtailed to one or another form of addiction maintenance (and that is most often what govt. methadone and government heroin result in) maybe government should get out of heroin addiction treatment altogether.

Absent any significantly effective goverenment treatment scheme, perhaps we should seriously consider letting non-profits (with no govt. subsidies) and the self-responsible individuals themselves carry the load, not taxpayers.

I think a thorough review of the reported effectiveness of alternative treatments would be helpful, as would authoritative statistics - if they even really exist - on success rates of all types of heroin addiction treatment.

I wish I had the time - and funding - to pursue such a research project. Perhaps some day.

Here's a study regarding the heroin programs that you are all talking about:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/debate/myths/myths4.htm

As of 1983, however, England began to phase out these programs of clinically supplied heroin in favor of methadone treatment.49 Why? First, according to the reputable British physician journal Lancet, the number of addicts increased 100% between 1970 and 1980.50 A disproportionate number of these new addicts were between the ages of sixteen and seventeen.51 Second, only twenty percent of all of the addicts in England belonged to the clinical programs.52 At first blush, this fact seems strange - why would addicts choose not to participate in a program wherein they get free methadone? The answer probably lies in the fact that methadone does not produce the high that heroin does. Also, addicts probably did not care for the mandatory treatment and rehabilitation facets of the clinical programs. Whatever the reason, by 1985 England had 80,000 heroin addicts, the vast majority of whom wen not in treatment.53

A third reason why England began to abolish its clinical heroin program was the fact that not only were there few people, in them, but the programs themselves did not work. According to the British Medical Journal, more addicts left the program because of criminal convictions than because of treatment.54 Fourth, even with the clinical programs, heroin addicts had a death rate twenty-six times the average population. Finally, even when the programs were in operation, Scotland Yard had to increase its narcotics division 100% in order to cope with the increased crime rate.56

To summarize, the British experience with decriminalized heroin in the clinical context was a dismal failure. When experts from British Columbia were debating whether to create a similar program, they made the following conclusions that are so important as to deserve to be quoted at length:

This reader came across an article on Herion
adiction in austin Texas. The Story via Fox News
was posted : as adicts of heroin in general.
as it related to Austin.
as Fox reported on Vancouver B.C.
free heroin program.
as an opinion piece for readers in
Texas may have a concern or thought on the subject
This simple url blog fills in a
few of the links of the above mentioned INPs.
Unfortunately for myself, I missed out on
the good opportunity to take in the Blogers forum
at the Space Needle presentation session on the
progress and form of blogging. I did get the
link of the Seattle area list of bloggers and
have found it exempleary and a place for good
resources. I take this opportunity to give this
simple expanded version for your comment list.
I have had the opportunity to attend courses
other than Literature at Seattle U. and U of W.
As blogging goes, I have a lot to learn and
improve upon. Only from the personal experience
of working in Vancouver and knowing of the
problem first hand ; do I fill in the blanks and
go no further. This is a complex social concern.
The attempt to stabalize the effects are task
heavy. It is a certainty as to damaging effects
that will continue; if no attempts to resolve
this issue are tried.

I guess the thinkin is we should give a thief money not to rob us. Give a Drug dealer money not to sell and give a Junkie drugs so he wont have to steal for them ?

I believe "clean house confinement and treatment" is the best solution

I guess the thinkin is we should give a thief money not to rob us. Give a Drug dealer money not to sell and give a Junkie drugs so he wont have to steal for them ?

I believe "clean house confinement and treatment" is the best solution