Heroin clinics would help few addicts, says agency head.

Iceni Toker · Sep 16, 2009

Sourced from The Guardian. Heroin clinics would help few addicts, says agency head | Society | guardian.co.uk

Heroin clinics would help few addicts, says agency head

Pilot scheme that provided heroin in supervised clinics cut drug use and related crime.

Only a "very small proportion" of the 160,000 heroin addicts in treatment would benefit from a scheme providing them with the drug in supervised clinics, the head of the government's drug treatment service said today.

Paul Hayes, of the National Treatment Agency, said three government-funded clinical trials had produced encouraging results, but involved only chronic long-term addicts who had failed to respond to other treatments.

"No one is suggesting that this should be the frontline treatment for heroin addiction. Heroin has been available on prescription since the 1920s to a very limited number of addicts, and these pilots are simply to explore whether controlled prescribing of heroin will be effective in overcoming their problems."

Hayes said the pilot schemes involved the use of pharmaceutical diamorphine imported from Switzerland in a supervised clinic prescribed by a doctor. The practice should not be confused with the use of illicit street heroin in legalised consumption rooms known as "shooting galleries".

"The pilots need to identify how many individuals might benefit from this treatment, but at most we are talking about a very small proportion of the 160,000 addicts in treatment."

The independent expert group running the pilot scheme has recommended that it should be expanded to further demonstration sites. Hayes said he was not calling for a national rollout of shooting galleries, as suggested by some reports.

The interim results of the four-year trials, held in London, Brighton and Darlington, were being reported today at a National Addiction Centre and Action on Addiction conference. Three-quarters of users "substantially reduced" their use of street drugs, and their spending on drugs fell from Â£300 to Â£50 a week. The number of crimes they committed fell from 1,731 in three months to 547 in six months.

Professor John Strang, who led the trials, said the results were "very positive" because the scheme had helped to cut crime and avoid expensive prison sentences among a group that were the hardest to treat.

"It's as if each of them is an oil tanker heading for disaster and so the purpose of this trial is to see: 'Can you turn them around? Is it possible to avert disaster?' And the surprising finding – which is good for the individuals and good for society as well – is that you can," he told the BBC.

The pilots, known as the "randomised injecting opioid treatment trials" – or Riott – were run by the National Addiction Centre and the Action on Addiction charity, under an advisory group that included the NTA, Department of Health and the Home Office.

During the pilots, one-third of the 127 chronic heroin addicts were given Swiss heroin, one-third were given the heroin substitute methadone orally, and the remainder injected methadone under supervision. They were also given psychological counselling and help with their housing and social needs.

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Personally, as the case with all illegal substances I think these clinics would work and succeed hugely in reducing drug relaetd harm, crime, and general stupidity. Please disscuss.

Edit: crap ,wrong section sorry. Please could a mod move this to Pandoras Box or whatever you think is the most appropriate section.

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Heroin clinics would help few addicts, says agency head.

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Heroin clinics would help few addicts, says agency head.

Iceni Toker Fighting the evil empire&#33; Gold Member

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