Swiss To Ok Prescription Heroin?
Posted by: BookGirl on: November 29, 2008
The Huffington Post reports prescription heroin might get the green light in Switzerland. The country has had a program in place for 14 years where doctors provide addicts with a “safe” dose of the drug to curb their cravings. The dose doesn’t provide the patient with a high, but rather, satiates the withdrawal symptoms so they can continue to function.
Citizens will be voting on whether to make the program permanent or not and reports say about 60% of voters will approve it. Statistics claim crime by heroin addicts has also dropped 60% and there has been a significant reduction in drug use in public places.
HuffPo article HERE.
Aside from controlling the risk of overdose, the Swiss are probably curbing the spread of infectious diseases because they are preventing heroin users from sharing needles. Addicts typically have a higher rate of infection of diseases like HIV because of their use of dirty needles. HuffPo reports the program costs tax payers $2 million but the reduction in HIV and Hepatitis probably makes up for it.
But does the program send the wrong message? Does it encourage the use of heroin?
In the United States, methadone clinics are used to wean addicts off of heroin. Methadone was developed by Nazis during WWII as a substitute for raw opium and was brought to our country by Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company. (Find a methadone fact sheet from the White House HERE.)
But it can be addicting and deadly, just like heroin. And because of its depiction as the antithesis of heroin (a good drug vs. a bad drug), methadone is being used more and more as a prescribed pain killer which is hypocritical.
News reports below discuss the dangers of methadone use.
Treating addictive drugs peddled by street urchins with addictive drugs peddled by pharmaceutical companies is shady.
Alternative programs like the one in Switzerland may provide us with with a way to regulate heroin use and help addicts rejoin society without running the risk of addicting them to yet another drug.
But abstention programs should also be funded and doctors need to regulate their prescription practices. Our medical culture and our societal problems are creating a nation of addicts.
3 Responses to "Swiss To Ok Prescription Heroin?"
[...] Swiss To Ok Prescription Heroin? « The Political Fancier – In the United States, methadone clinics are used to wean addicts off of heroin. It was developed by Nazis during WWII as a substitute for raw opium and was brought to our country by Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company. … [...]
December 1, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Apologies for messing up a link in previous post:
See the Vancouver Heroin NAOMI Study results
Reaching the hardest to reach – Treating the hardest to treat
- Summary of the Primary Outcomes of the the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI)
The NAOMI Study Team
October 17,2008
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December 1, 2008 at 5:38 pm
As you know, roughly 68% of Swiss citizen’s voted in-favor of legitimizing – or normalizing – heroin maintenance therapy. This is an enlightened and sensible stance.
One of the most convincing arguements in favor of heroin maintenance therapy is the positive effect the past 14 years of heroin trials have had upon decreasing the number of new heroin users in Swiss society.
Most countries that try heroin prescription trials do so with a small study, such as the InSite study in Vancouver. It was just one clinic and lasted for 3 years. While successful, it was still a small study (see Vancouver’s <a href=”http://www.naomistudy.ca/”Naomi Study heroin trial results). By contrast, the Swiss study lasted 14 years and was run out of 32 Heroin Assisted Treatment clinics. Its results are large enough to show a significant impact.
And what impact was most positive? It reduced new heroin users.
How? By making heroin legally available to virtually all the hard-core addicts over the past 14 years, it took a large segment of Switzerland’s heroin using population off the streets and into legal clinics. Accordingly, there people didn’t have to buy from street dealers anymore. Over the years then, the street scene shrank and there was less and less business for the dealers.
Less and less business meant less and less street dealers. So the new generation of potential heroin dabblers had far fewer opportunities to find people to buy heroin from. All the old street dealers (usually users themselves selling to maintain their habit) were at the HAT clinics getting legal heroin instead of selling.
The number of youths who dabbled in heroin during the past 14 years was enormously less than the youth who were able to use in the previous 14 years. In effect, the street heroin scene had been wiped out.
Similar affect could be expected in any society where all the present heroin addicts were able to access legal heroin. Within a few years the street “black market” heroin scene would disappear and then youth would have very little opportunity to access heroin. Basically a societal situation is created where there are very few new addicts and within a generation or two what used to be a big problem is reduced to a very small one, while all the former addicts are now being managed by the health system, and no new addicts are coming up the pike.
Kudos to Swiss sensibility!