Vancouver Plans To Offer Free Heroin To Addicts

[Suga Foot]

 Vancouver Plans To Offer
Free Heroin To Addicts
By Jane Armstrong
The Globe and Mail
1-31-5
 

VANCOUVER -- On a warm, rainy Saturday morning, Debbie Woelke stops pushing her shopping cart long enough to discuss the pros and cons of a plan to give free heroin to drug addicts in Canada's poorest neighbourhood. The heroin trial is all the talk of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and Ms. Woelke, 48, thinks it's a good idea. She might even apply, herself. "They should have done this a long time ago," she said leaning on her cart, which contains all her worldly belongings -- not groceries.
 
Like other addicts, Ms. Woelke lives in a bleak rented room in a residential hotel. Far better to be outside in the rain, even if it means wheeling around your clothes all day.
 
"Sometimes you need something just to relax and get your mind together, instead of always being in a state of panic. That's what's killing everyone down here," she said, pointing to the throngs of bedraggled souls shuffling along East Hastings Street. Like Ms. Woelke, they must hit the pavement every day to raise enough cash for their drugs. Most steal. Many women work as prostitutes.
 
"They have to do things they wouldn't normally do."
 
This is exactly what some of Canada's top addiction experts want to find out when they begin the first heroin prescription trial in North America.
 
If heroin addicts are freed of their daily chase for drugs, if it is given to them three times a day like medicine, can they change their lives for the better?
 
In a couple of weeks, the research team will begin taking applications here in Vancouver and later in Toronto and Montreal from addicts who want to be part of the study.
 
Researchers are looking for hard-core addicts, people who have tried and failed at least twice to get clean. In the three cities, there are spots for 428 addicts, roughly half of whom will receive heroin for a year; the other half will receive methadone, an artificial opiate that controls the cravings for heroin.
 
In Vancouver, the trials are causing a stir on the syringe-littered streets of the city's skid row, home to more than 4,000 drug users. Among those who deal first hand with these chaotic lives, there's a feeling that Canada is breaking new ground in how it treats the most intractable of drug addictions.
 
Similar studies in the Netherlands and Switzerland have shown positive results for addicts.
 
"What if you could say to an addict, 'For the next little while, you're not going to have to get your drugs from Al Capone. You can get your drugs from Marcus Welby,' " said Dr. Martin Schechter, the project's lead researcher.
 
"You don't have to worry about this afternoon and this evening. And therefore, you don't have to go and break in to cars or be a prostitute. You could actually come and talk to a counsellor or . . . get some skills training."
 
It's a landmark study in North America, one that turns its back on abstinence as the goal.
 
But not everyone is thrilled with the prospect of free heroin for hard-core addicts. And even supporters have expressed concern about the ethics of offering heroin to addicts for a prescribed period of time. Is it fair to yank away their heroin at the end of the year?
 
Addiction experts in Canada have already expressed concerns about the risk of overdoses.
 
Last December, two staff physicians at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health wrote scathing critiques to the ethics adviser of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the agency funding the study.
 
Vancouver physician Stanley deVlaming is worried the trials are designed to garner positive results. In Vancouver, 88 subjects are to receive heroin, while 70 will receive methadone, the heroin substitute.
 
"How meaningful will it be to compare the group of 88 elated subjects that win the heroin lottery to the group of 70 who were also desperately trying to get the free heroin, but lost the luck of the draw?" asked Dr. deVlaming, who has treated addicts in the Downtown Eastside for more than a dozen years.
 
"The first group would likely be very motivated to give the researchers positive results, while the second disappointed and disgruntled group randomized to methadone would be much less motivated."
 
As expected, the plan has rankled U.S. drug officials, specifically the office of White House drug czar John Walters, where an official called it an unethical and "inhumane medical experiment."
 
Offering free heroin to addicts when there are proven treatments for addiction can't be justified if the addict's desire is to get off drugs, policy analyst David Murray said.
 
"What you're doing is making it easier to be a heroin addict," he said from Washington. "These people won't get that much better in the long run. They will still be heroin addicts."
 
Washington's disapproval was expected and hasn't deterred Ottawa from funding the study. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has committed $8.1-million for the trials.
 
In Vancouver, the plan has the support of top politicians and law enforcers, including the mayor and the police chief.
 
Mayor Larry Campbell, who was once a coroner and drug cop, said the trials are needed because current treatments aren't working for hard-core addicts.
 
"The critical thing is to accept this as a medical condition," Mr. Campbell said.
 
"The side effects of this medical condition is that it forces you to . . . do things that you would never do, be it work as a sex-trade worker, be a B and E [break-and-enter] artist or a purse snatcher. So if I can mitigate that by putting you on heroin, imagine the changes you could have."
 
Right now, the trial is waiting for Health Canada to grant the necessary exemption form the Canadian Narcotics Act.
 
Ms. Woelke said she plans to tell her friends to apply. She would be content to get on the methadone program.
 
"Methadone, whatever," she said shrugging her shoulders. "I need something every day."
 
© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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I'm interested to see peoples thoughts on this.  aaannnnddddd.......GO

[Suga Foot]

They were talking about this on the Seattle news last night, they said it would NEVER happen in the US.  So don't worry lol

[Woodrow]

Hopefully all the h addicts in America will run to Canada.

j/k...

Seems to me that they're just gonna keep chasing a bigger high, but I'm not too knowledgeable in heroin addiction. Also kinda seems like they've just given up and accepted that people are gonna be addicts forever.

[mauzip]

^no, they do it to get to know more about the drug scene and also because dealers can kill addicts by just changing the heroin a lil bit

[Sikotic™]

I dont see the benefit in this at all other than encouraging them to use. It won't really change things.

[Rampant]

I dont see the benefit in this at all other than encouraging them to use. It won't really change things.

[white Boy]

im gonna get free heroin and sell it

[Suga Foot]

I dont see the benefit in this at all other than encouraging them to use. It won't really change things.

when people are hard core addicts like the ones that will be used in this program, they can't function unless they're on heroin.  They tweak when they're not high because they've become dependant on it.  When they inject it, they feel normal.  These people need 4 or 5 hits a day, and they're all poor.  So they spend all day breaking into cars, mugging people and going thru the trash just to get enough to feel normal.  The idea is that if the herion is provided to these people, they'll spend their day doing something productive.

[Sikotic™]

I had no clue it makes them act normal. It's still fucked up tho since it will slowly be killing them.

[eS El Duque]

Ahh, my beautiful city!

[Suga Foot]

^no, they do it to get to know more about the drug scene and also because dealers can kill addicts by just changing the heroin a lil bit

why would a dealer kill his customers?





anyway, I don't think people realize how bad the stituation in our Dowtown Eastside really is.  Cuz its baaaaaaaad

[T.J.]

^the majority of dealers dont really care what they cut their drugs with, if u inject some of the bad shit it can fuck you up badly.

[Don Rizzle]

the scheme will probably halve crime rates in the area so i'd say its a good thing, their already addicts ruining lots of peoples lives why not just let them abuse themselves if they want and when their ready to stop give them the methidome

[Rampant]

when people are hard core addicts like the ones that will be used in this program, they can't function unless they're on heroin. They tweak when they're not high because they've become dependant on it. When they inject it, they feel normal. These people need 4 or 5 hits a day, and they're all poor. So they spend all day breaking into cars, mugging people and going thru the trash just to get enough to feel normal. The idea is that if the herion is provided to these people, they'll spend their day doing something productive.

You dont have to tell me that. I know heroin junkies.

Im addicted to cigarettes, whats next....my city starts giving out free smokes? Why not free crack to all the addicts? or any drug for that matter.

[Javier]

I think it will be an interesting experiment to see how it works out.  If the crime rate stays the same just stop the program

Being addicted to cigarettes doesnt make you want to commit crime to pay for them.