ok...there are so many things i'd like to address here, as there are so many points coming up.
the last time (to my knowledge) there was an effort to trial heroin maintenance in australia, this is what happened:
1996 Bill Clinton's chief international drugs enforcer, Bob Gelbard, flies in to threaten Tasmania's legal and lucrative poppy-growing industry to stop the ACT going ahead with a heroin trial. The trial never happens.
(from david marr's article here
http://www.smh.com.au/national/the-great-debate-that-no-ones-talking-about-20111203-1ocag.html)
so in other words, the pressure was placed on australia for political reasons. besides the principle involved ("we can't give addicts heroin, this is a
war on drugs!" i would presume that the US government's concern was diverted pharmaceutical H.
from a medical point of view, heroin has both pros and cons in comparison to traditional maintenance drugs methadone or buprenorphine.
heroin's short duration means that a patient would need to be dosed at least 3 times a day in order to stay out of withdrawal.
this would be very time consuming for both patient and pharmacist (or whichever medical professional is administering the treatment).
on the other hand, it seems that most addicts find heroin easier to successfully withdraw from than bupe - or especially methadone. the long-lasting opioids are notorious for drawn-out withdrawals that can last for weeks or months. prescribing heroin could be an option for people wishing to avoid getting bound by the "liquid handcuffs" of opiate maintenance, to stabilise their lives a bit before kicking.
unlike street heroin, prescribed pharmaceutical stuff could be accurately tapered.
i imagine this would be much simpler than transferring addicts onto 'done or bupe
then tapering.
while i don't agree with shimazu's points, i know that the concerns of many people are in line with his/hers.
the main reason that more countries don't prescribe heroin to recovering addicts is political.
heroin addiction is deeply stigmatised both socially and legally - many people seem to have a strong emotional reaction towards helping people by giving them the "bad" or "sinful" thing that caused them such trouble in the first place.
i think america is very forceful in pushing this sort of puritan idea that giving heroin to addicts is somehow rewarding them for doing the forbidden; that instead addicts should either be punished or have their habits contained (so long as it doesn't provide pleasure). it isn't just pushed on the american people, but other countries that fall under american influence.
in australia's case, this drug policy influence is anything but subtle or implied, as i quoted above. for such a threat to be carried out at the mere proposal of a heroin maintenance
trial shows the intensity of opposition in some quarters.
as others have mentioned, there are plenty of other really enjoyable opiates out there that are prescribed for people in a lot of pain or very sick. diacetylmorphine is able to be prescribed by doctors in the uk (and other countries) for the same purposes, but in countries such as australia or the usa, i don't believe this is possible. that is how powerful the stigma of heroin is - which is in many ways just a historical fluke, as it is chemically so similar to morphine and other related derivatives.
perhaps these ideas are partly informed by the modern history of heroin prescription in the UK in the 1960s? my understanding is that the british heroin scene in the early 60s was almost exclusively created by NHS dope diverted by addicts?
i certainly don't want to generalise about the kind of people that become addicted to heroin, but it is well known that heroin addicts are often resourceful people!
these are often people that can lead productive lives - and if medicated correctly, they don't need to "sit around all day and use drugs". a well implemented treatment scheme is very much the opposite of sitting around all day using drugs, as addicts shouldn't have to spend as much time in scoring drugs or hustling money to get them.
i don't see why addiction shouldn't be treated with whatever medical tools are most appropriate.
addiction specialists and well informed drug treatment professionals should be deciding the best drugs to treat people with, not politicians, foreign diplomats or law enforcement.
i can certainly understand some of the arguments on both sides - it is not a simple matter - but i don't think people should be denied the most appropriate methods of treatment for highly emotive political (or
economic!) reasons.
i'd much rather the government spend taxpayer's money treating drug addiction than on funding fucked up aggressive wars. it's ironic that the largest source of black market opium/heroin in the world has been under US military occupation for over a decade!
that's a whole other discussion, but the cost of invading small impoverished nations is a whole lot more than it could possibly cost to supply a few thousand addicts with pharmaceutical heroin - yet for some reason, the latter option is a whole lot more unpalatable for people.
it's a
sham and we've all been manipulated for too long about drugs - people actually continue believing the hype when it's been shoved down their throats for generations. the passions that run hot in this argument are completely contrived and artificial, so much from the scare campaigns that have been used for decades about heroin is just imprinted on how the populous thinks.
propaganda is some fucking potent shit!
