Free heroin for drug addicts in Canada

dbighead2

dbighead2

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,150076,00.html

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Just over the United States northwest border, addicts will soon be able to get their fix from the Canadian government in the form of free heroin (search) administered by nurses and doctors on the taxpayer's dime.

"They're using heroin. They'll continue to use heroin. What we're trying to do is prevent them from getting something irreversible like HIV, hep [hepatitis] C and overdose death,” said Dr. Martin Schechter, the director of the heroin program.

Vancouver is the first city to take part in the North American Opiate Medication Initiative, which plans to enroll 470 participants at three sites in Canada. The Toronto and Montreal sites are expected to begin recruiting candidates this spring.

Vancouver Police Chief Jamie Graham (search) is among supporters who say the heroin giveaway will let junkies shoot up without having to resort to theft or prostitution to buy their drugs. Breaking that cycle of crime, they argue, is the first step toward turning an addict's life around.

“I’m not a medical expert, this is not my field. I'm an expert in public safety," Graham said. "And if this will help reduce the crime rate — I'm all for it."

In the program all addicts have to do to get their fix is show up three times a day seven days a week.

Junkies offered different views of the program to FOX News. Some think it's the government's way of killing them, while others say they can't wait for the free dope. But none of them thought it would eventually get them clean.

"I think it would lower the crime rate. Nobody's gonna be robbing each other. Nobody's going to be sick enough to rob each other. All be taken care of. Free dope, woo-hoo,” said heroin addict Olivia Edgars.

Recovered addict Chuck Swesey - who's been clean 20 years - says the program smacks of government drug pushing. He says he knows how he would've ended under a program like this: "I'd be dead ... or I'd be in a jail or an institution."

The $8 million Canadian program is patterned after similar efforts in Europe.
 
I personally think it's a good step, it worked in Europe, it should work in Canada.
 
Most of the addicts should have to do some sort of work for it though, and not just be worthless bottem feeders. It wouldnt be like an 8hr or even 4hr a day job. But they should contribute to the country's welfare/society somehow in exchange for free heaven.
 
Gotta love the ever fair and balanced Fox News:

Junkies offered different views of the program to FOX News. Some think it's the government's way of killing them, while others say they can't wait for the free dope.
Click to expand...

:X

I'm sure people will still use street heroin... if someone wants a fix and it's 2 AM and the clinic doesn't open until 9, I'm sure they'd get it by whatever means necessary. I don't disagree with the initiative, but I think it's going to end up looking a lot better in retrospect on paper than in practice. :\
 
And I'm sure some think it's a valuable step towards harm minimisation - but hey, Fox News are of the belief that "Junkies" should get infected with HIV and then thrown into prison!

Praise the lord
 
i really dont know what ithink o this type of "free heroin"..i mean, the goal of cutting crime wil help the community BUT it will only ADD to the amount of heroin addicts i have to believe...i cannot imagine going to a clinic 3 times a day to SHOOT UP heron, and then go about my day..i mean, it seems so ODD...sure, its harm reduction, but what is it preaching basically, that heroin is impossible to stop, and since it seems to be, lets give everyone free heroin so they dont rob their buddy..man, i dunno bout this...

im interested in the RATES of heroin addictin, if they go up thru progrms like this...whats the numbers in europe EBENZZER??

being an opiod LOVER myself, i feel that this type of program sends a "getting clean from opiods is impossible" message, and that bums me out./.then again, the relapse rate of opiod freaks is way too high...
 
It's a sham once you think about it. The only people that are going to do this will live close to the area, and how many of them do you think will get to be in the program? Most people would rather just buy a few bundles on a street corner and not have to leave their home for a few days or more.
 
i duno DEXTER, i think many people will take full advantage of this heroin pharmacy...i know many of my previous smack buddies would have dreamed of having a place where they could ge free dope..i just ant imgine going to a place like this, sit around with a bunch of addicts, shooting up...it would feel very surreal...
 
It just seems like a methadone clinic to me. You probably have to come in at certain times, on certain days, blah blah. Cant take any with you, you have to shoot there. I would definately take advantage of this system, but i would rather shoot up on my own, at home, during my own time. I'm just a bastard.
 
The projct was restricted to people who had been addicts for, I believe, at least five years. All participants also had to have tried to quit and failed and had problems with methadone.

A short rport in today's (Sunday, March 20) Toronto Star says it's going well and the folks in the program are in better health health and using less than before they started.
The main idea is that its better to have folks shoot somewhere safe, thereby preventing healthrisks and the spread of disease, and to allow people to become both employable and able their drugs without turning to crime.
 
Sorry for double posting(I also put this in The Front Page). I don't know how BLers look at their BL. From Mar. 17, Toronto Star:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mar._17, 2005. 07:07_PM
_Safe injection sites reduce HIV spread: Study


FROM CANADIAN PRESS
Giving addicts a safe, supervised place to inject drugs may help reduce syringe-sharing, thereby preventing the spread of hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS, Canadian research suggests.

A University of British Columbia study has found that drug users who regularly use Vancouver's safe-injection site in the city's gritty eastside are 70 per cent less likely to share needles than those who give the facility a pass.

"This is extremely important because Vancouver has been the site of one of the most explosive HIV epidemics among injection-drug users that has ever been observed in the developed world," said Thomas Kerr, a researcher at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and lead author of the study.

"We know syringe sharing is the primary driving factor of these two epidemics," Kerr said from Vancouver. "So it's very good news to have identified an intervention that seems to be having some type of protective effect."

But addiction experts, noting that the number of participants in the study was small and the city's drug-abuse problem complex, say the injection site's impact on curtailing needle-sharing should not be overstated.

The study, appearing in this week's issue of the Lancet, looked at the habits of 431 injection-drug users to see how many shared syringes to shoot up heroin, cocaine, crystal meth or other drugs. About 90 — or 21 per cent — reported visiting North America's only safe-injection clinic for "some, most or all of their injections," said Kerr.

Seventy per cent of those who made use of the injection site reported being less likely to share syringes "than individuals who used the facility only occasionally or not at all," said Kerr. ``Given the history of HIV and hepatitis C epidemics in Vancouver and in other places in Canada, this finding is significant." The prevalence of blood-borne diseases among Vancouver injection-drug users is high: about 30 per cent have HIV/AIDS and 95 per cent are infected with hepatitis C.

But Benedikt Fischer, a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, said Thursday the study's findings are not surprising, given that a major aim of the site is to prevent needle sharing.

Dubbed InSite, the clinic opened in September 2003 to provide a safe alternative to the streets for Vancouver addicts to inject drugs. Sterile syringes and water are provided, and nurses oversee injections to help prevent overdose deaths and to offer addiction counselling and treatment referrals. In the last 12 months, an average of almost 600 drug users visited the site each day.

Yet studies have shown that most injectors don't utilize such facilities — there are also about a dozen in Europe and one in Sydney, Australia — for the majority of their drug hits, Fischer said. "Rather, people go there once in a while or when it's convenient, or they use those facilities irregularly."

Realistically, someone who is hooked on heroin or cocaine, and may inject up to 20 times a day, is not going to wait in line at an injection clinic after scoring drugs from a dealer, he said. Hungry for a hit, most will shoot up on the street, in a vehicle or back alley — and that may involve using contaminated needles.

While he believes safe-injection sites can be an important part of the puzzle in tackling the risks and harmful outcomes associated with drug-injection, Fischer calls them a small piece of a much bigger picture.

"You cannot generalize that finding and go out and say, `Look, we've proven that if we set up safe-injection facilities that injectors across the board will decrease needle sharing.' That's not what the data show."

In an accompanying Lancet editorial, Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland in Australia agrees that only a fraction of Vancouver's drug injectors use InSite.

"It is generally optimistic to expect a single facility to reduce overdose deaths and infections by blood-borne viruses in the community, even if the facility is shown to reduce risk behaviour in patrons," Hall writes.

Still, Kerr said the study definitely shows a change in behaviour since InSite opened.

The researchers, who have been following about 1,500 drug users since 1996 with twice-yearly interviews and blood tests, looked at reports on needle-sharing in the 431 participants both before and after the centre opened.

"What's particularly interesting is that the difference in syringe sharing really only emerged after the facility opened."

The December 2003-June 2004 study also found that people who need help shooting up — nurses at InSite are prohibited by law from aiding injection — are three times more likely to share needles, while binge injectors are twice as likely to use someone else's syringe.

The idea of providing havens for drug users to get high has proved controversial, with opponents — especially in the United States and the United Kingdom — claiming the sites promote drug use and do nothing to get people off illegal substances.

That's why continuing research into sites in Vancouver and elsewhere is critical, said Kerr. "I think that this study helps inform discussions about the merits of such facilities."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The URL is http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...tacodalogin=yes
 
what i wanna know is what types of DOSAGES are gievn to tnese people..is it one dosage for all, or is each person assessed according to their using experience??also, will the clinic UP ones dosage after a few months if the injector claims it no longer affects them...i mean, are people shooting up in these clinics, waling out nodding and shit??

im pro-drg, yet i still have my question about legal shooting galleries etc etc..i personally, couldnt imagine buying dope, then walking into a clinic to shoot it up...it would be very surreal...
 
Tongue said:
im pro-drg, yet i still have my question about legal shooting galleries etc etc..i personally, couldnt imagine buying dope, then walking into a clinic to shoot it up...it would be very surreal...
Click to expand...

Back in the early quarter of the 20th century, there was legal shooting dens all over the place. You could walking into a "shooting bar", sit down on the counter, and the guy working there would shoot you up with pure morphine for the cost of next to nothing.
 
Sorry folks I don't dosages. Here's the government press release: http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/26516.html Basic FAQs should be answered there or do a google on "North American Opiate Medication Initiative"

My apologies for fucking up above -- the safe injection site project in the article I linked to above is different from this project.

Dr. Martin Schechter is a very cool guy and an even cooler doctor. Funny too.

Edited to add: There have been some terrific methadone and needle exchange porgrams in Canada, but folks are finding that even given those supports a sizeable number of opiate users will continue to IV heroin or other injectable opiates. For some it's the side effects of methadone (like weight gain) or lack of a rush or that some people do like using needles. Seems crazy to many of us, but a lot of BLers like their smoke, whatever is in it, just like some people will never smoke cuz they find it gross.

Vancouver's lower east side is really wild -- til I went there I couldn't imagine it. It sits side by side with some of the wealthiest and most touristy parts of the city, but folks seem to know the boundaries and if you're not an asshole it's all cool.

Edited to add: Another thread on The Front Page: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=191095&r=0
 
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So you have to turn up 3 times a day , that sucks what if you have a job or something and you have to leve in the middle to get a fix.

Sounds really inconvenient. I reckon once a day and they give you enough for 3 fixes.
 
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