Helping heroin addicts

The launch of a new program that pro­vides free heroin to addicts cannot be said to have the full blessings of the federal Harper government, despite the fact it is supported by taxpayers’ cash. Funded by Canada’s primary health research body, the $1-million trial project to start this fall will give heroin in pill or injection form to 200 ad­dicts in Montreal and Vancouver.

It is a useful step forward in the country's quest for appropriate health care for addicts. Heroin is a relatively safe opiate as a test case: As long as addicts have their fix, they can live fairly normally. Constantly on the hunt for an illicit supply, addicts are vulnerable to disease, such as HIV or hepatitis, arrest and homelessness.

The study follows a similar three-year trial project in Vancouver and Montreal that focussed on addicts who repeatedly failed other treatment programs. That study's results, reported last fall, mirrored those in other countries that have used free provision of heroin to reduce harm to addicts. It had good retention of participants, whose health improved notably and found the use of illicit drugs fell off, as did the frequency of arrests. In short, the lives of participants were healthier and more hopeful.

These results are challenging to the federal Tories who have insisted taxpayers cannot be in the business of paying for an addict's habit. Last year, Vancouver's Insite clinic was on the verge of shutting down when a British Columbia Supreme Court extended its minister's permit, which exempted it from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The clinic, which provides free needles but not drugs, has proven that a safe, supervised environment saves lives by preventing overdoses and assisting with the health issues of addicts.

Ottawa appears determined to shut down Insite, pursuing an appeal to that decision, which effectively tied the government's hands in its power to regulate a clinic providing an illegal drug. While understandable in principle, the government's continued battle over a reasonable, workable health care program for addicts is counterproductive.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is adamant that taxpayers' money ought to be directed to treatment and prevention. The experience of countless drug programs that aim to get users to go clean speaks to the futility of this approach. It makes waste of an investment that returns very little on any dollar.

Mr. Harper's cabinet continues to regard what is often referred to as "harm-reduction" therapy as subsidizing drug habits. In fact, such therapy speaks directly to the government's own goals: treatment and prevention. Participants became healthier and used heroin less often. Indeed, a Toronto-based analysis pegged the health and other social costs associated with untreated drug use, for opiate addicts such as heroin users, was at about $45,000 annually.

Canada, it is estimated, has something approaching 60,000 opiate addicts. Aside from the human toll exacted by forcing heroin users to the margins of society where the criminal element reigns, the cost of enforcing a drug policy that fails miserably in its goals is far greater than funding clinics such as Insite.

That the Harper administration has not shut down studies that seek to serve the best interests of addicts is a glimmer of hope that someday federal drug policy, too, will buckle under growing evidence and begin to serve the best interests of the country.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 2, 2009 A10