TREATMENT FOR HEROIN ADDICTS TO GET MORE RESEARCH CASH

OTTAWA - A major Toronto-based study into alternatives to methadone - the
only, and often not successful, treatment for heroin addicts in Canada - is
among the projects receiving millions in new federal research grants.

Health Minister Allan Rock will announce at a news conference in Toronto
today a total of $235 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of
Health Research.

Rock is expected to highlight the work of Dr. Benedikt Fischer, who works
at both the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of
Toronto.

Fischer, who is heading a team of researchers from across the country
looking for ways to improve treatment for people addicted to heroin and
other opiate-related substances, such as painkillers, will get a $3.3
million grant.

"We hope we will be able, on the basis of evidence that we're generating,
to expand treatment options and alternatives so we're providing more
appealing treatment," Fischer said yesterday in an interview.

That would help reduce overdose deaths, health problems and crime linked to
addiction.

Canada - an international pioneer in methadone research starting in the
late 1950s - hasn't kept up with treatment advances in other countries,
argued Fischer.

The only option for Canadian heroin addicts is methadone, while in other
countries methadone is offered along with other substitute drugs, and even
doctor-prescribed heroin, he said. Methadone can cause a number of
unpleasant side effects, including numbness and sleepiness.

In Canada it's dispensed under "a system with 1,001 rules" including
constant trips to a clinic and urine testing, said Fischer.

That leads to high drop-out rates for treatment - anywhere from 30 per cent
to 80 per cent, depending on the program.

In Toronto, for example, only one third of street users of opiates are in
treatment.

There are an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 street users of heroin and other
opiates in Canada.

A few hundred Canadians die of opiate-related overdoses each year,
statistics show.

Toronto-based researchers studying everything from anorexia nervosa to
transplant rejection to diabetes will receive about a quarter of the grant
funding to be announced today.