Long before fentanyl transformed the illicit drug market, researchers in Vancouver embarked on a study that would open the door in Canada to a new form of treatment for opioid addiction.
The study found that, for the small number of people who did not benefit from common oral medications such as methadone, injectable pharmaceutical-grade heroin was safe and effective. Participants, stabilized on a regulated opioid, reduced illicit drug use and criminal activity, improving their physical and mental health. Employment and economic situations also got better.
More than a decade later, an illicit drug supply made extremely toxic by high concentrations of fentanyl has killed thousands in British Columbia, and treatment with pharmaceutical-grade heroin (called diacetylmorphine, or DAM) to get people off street drugs has taken on a new significance. But the option, stymied by regulatory barriers and the high cost of importing the drug from Europe, has never expanded beyond a couple of hundred people.
Martin Schechter, who led the study, called the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI), and Perry Kendall, B.C.‘s first provincial health officer, are moving to change that.
Frustrated by a lack of action from government, the two have launched a company called FPP Inc., short for Fair Price Pharma, with the goal of producing an affordable domestic supply of legal, injectable heroin for use in treatment.
