Medical Heroin Helps Treatment-Resistant Addicts

time to legalize

My doctor says I need heroin to get high...but in all seriousness, when will voters in this country get our priorities straight and stop criminalizing addiction? Crimes should be illegal (theft, robbery, assualt, rape, murder) and actions that don't harm anyone else should not. After all, eating 100 big macs is bad for you, but we're not arresting people out of the drive-thru line. Personally, I'm sick of paying to incarcerate people who aren't criminals, while people who have actually done harm get let out early because "the system is overcrowded." Maybe if we only lock up people who actually deserve it...

Also, did you know that recently the US set a record? Over 1% of our adult population is behind bars. It's time for a change!

shaidar007 of OR @ Aug 21, 2009 17:36:58 PM

medical heroin tx

Ridiculouse!

michael weisman of PA @ Aug 21, 2009 10:59:23 AM

This is laughable

Of course this will work, these individuals don't have to change anything. It would be like getting shipped of to fat camp and being served triple Whoppers every meal (except breakfast, you can't miss the Cinnabon rolls). Also on the observed effect of crime rates falling... Um yeah, you just made everything these people do legal, of course rates will fall.

JJ of NC @ Aug 21, 2009 10:52:33 AM

I call BS

Of course this is going to work. They don't have to give anything up. Also in regards to reduced crime rates, you just made what they do legal, naturally crime rates will fall. I'd love to sign up for a program of change where i don't have to change. It'd be like going to fat camp and getting burgers every meal, big burgers too.

JJ of NC @ Aug 21, 2009 10:45:41 AM

It happens

As it happens, I do work with recovering addicts, helping to treat them through a progam that does not provide 'replacements' to their addiction, be it methadone or anything else. And it bothers me when someone relapses, and in some instances, dies. If providing medical herion to those who just cannot stay clean would save that person's life, and improve their quality of life, I think that it should be looked into. After all, a managed addiction in a clinical setting is much better than the toxic stew you find on the street. I would rather see a person completely clean and sober, but that is not always the reality.

Philip of AL @ Aug 20, 2009 17:18:36 PM

One sentence...really?

Reply to editor2010homelesschampions.ca

"NOT i to call myself a addictions expert i deal and have dealt with thousands of addicts who have recovered i do not support heroin as treatment or methadone i support recovery like when you have a problem you fix it you don’t let the problem continue to rule the agenda you don’t support the problem you fix it this is the reason people stay addicted because you have a support program that has solutions at the bottom of the list, terminal addiction is the new wave of treatment in northamerica any one who has recovered had to stop feeding the demon, the sooner the better why do think we call it recovery"

You’re absolutely correct, we should ignore what the New England Journal of Medicine has to say, and listen to this guy. This individual is clearly an expert. I mean he has dealt with "thousands of addicts." However, he can't type a sentence. Also, where does it say in this article that the game plan is to give heroin to you kids? I must have missed that. Leave the medicine to the experts.

The active ingredient in heroin is diacetylmorphine, which is rapidly converted to morphine in the human body. There are dozens of compounds on the U.S. market that are much more potent than heroin. For example, fentayl is on the order of 1,000 times more potent than morphine, yet doctors use that substance regularly to treat pain. So why can we use heroin if there is solid efficacy and safety data to support its use? Oh I forgot...this guy thinks it would be a bad plan.

You’re not an addiction expert, you’re a recovered addict. I guess if I survived cancer that would make me an oncologist?

Brian of NY @ Aug 20, 2009 08:21:23 AM

laughable lies from commenter

A reply to "editor2010homelesschampions.ca of XX

Aug 19, 2009 19:20:38 PM":

The reality is that many addicts can't (or at least won't) get off heroin and other opioids, and that's not going to change just because you wish upon a little star that things were different. We should take realistic measures to prevent their habits from harming them and the rest of society. Your abstinence-only "tough on drugs" approach has been a failure for the past 40 years. It has resulted in a thriving black market for drugs, with all of the predictable accompanying violence (disputes over drug-selling turf), theft (to pay for artificially inflated drug prices), and drug impurities and adulterants (causing overdoses and poisonings). Abstinence-only, zero-tolerance approaches to society's drug problem are the equivalent of sticking our collective head in the sand, much in the same way as abstinence-only approaches to sex education.

Your claims about the health risks of pharmaceutical-grade heroin are ludicrous. Heroin is no more dangerous than morphine at equianalgesic doses, and is no more addictive than many other commonly prescribed strong opioids; the main difference between morphine and heroin is that heroin takes effect more quickly, which is one reason that heroin is often prescribed in the U.K. for pain instead of morphine. The real health risks of street heroin come from (1) the dangerous impurities and cutting agents which do not exist in pharmaceutical-grade heroin like that prescribed in the study's clinic, (2) unsafe injection practices and needle reuse, which are not a factor in a medical environment like the study clinic, and (3) overdoses caused by widely varying potencies of street heroin, which are not a factor when administering regulated doses of pharmaceutical-grade heroin.

The fact that you are an ex-addict does not give you carte blanche to spread lies and misinformation about a subject of immense social importance. You seem to be using a definition of "addiction" that is inconsistent with what modern medical science knows about drug use. If medically-supervised heroin or methadone maintenance produces no problems apart from the mere fact of continued drug use - if they reduce violence, poverty, theft, drug overdoses, and poisonings - then we ought to use these tools to finally start doing something realistic about our society's "drug problem."

Brian of CT @ Aug 20, 2009 00:45:05 AM

HEROIN IS NOT MEDICINE

HEROIN IS NOT MEDICINE

PLEASE DON’T GIVE MY KIDS HEROIN AND CALL IT TREATMENT

Expert on what a death sentence, HEROIN is the most destructable, potent, toxic drug on the planet.So why would you call it treatment,and to give it out as a medicine. In the dtes of vancouver they have a methadone program they called treatment,the addicts in this part of the country have turned it into a source of intoxication yes that’s right they get freakin high on it, if not they just up there dose. . Heroin is ugly, to presribe it is dangerous the way i look at things if it’s okay for my children than ok for anyone. NOT i to call myself a addictions expert i deal and have dealt with thousands of addicts who have recovered i do not support heroin as treatment or methadone i support recovery like when you have a problem you fix it you don’t let the problem continue to rule the agenda you don’t support the problem you fix it this is the reason people stay addicted because you have a support program that has solutions at the bottom of the list, terminal addiction is the new wave of treatment in northamerica any one who has recovered had to stop feeding the demon, the sooner the better why do think we call it recovery. What ever there doing in the rest of the country it’s working but please don’t make any suggestion’s on how to fix the dtes.I consider myself a expert 25 years active addiction seven years practical recovery have a men’s house in the eastside of vancover. I consider myself as a test subject been there done it all today my only goal in life is to help change those who suffer, clean and sober is the goal a war you say yes but when the enemy is so called experts thowing bombs into the middle of the battle you have to look at the plan

editor2010homelesschampions.ca @ Aug 19, 2009 19:20:38 PM