CLINICAL HEROIN TRIALS MORE POSITIVE NEWS IN ADDICTION RESEARCH

More good news ahead on the drug front. Vancouver will soon be the
first city in North America to begin long-overdue clinical heroin
trials with addicts.

Warning - Those who advocate abstinence and Calvinism as surefire Old
Testament solutions to Downtown Eastside injection-drug problems won't have
anything positive to say about it.

We can all expect a redoubling of the Hurricane Denial negativity now
blowing against the neighbourhood safe-injection site as it saves
lives, prevents disease and refers addicts to treatment.

But back to the good news. After much needless delay, the North
American Opiate Medications Initiative is expected to be up and
running by year's end in an Abbott Street location.

After receiving approval for $8 million in 2001 from the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research -- the nation's leading research funding
agency -- trials will start once a federal exemption under the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act arrives.

The "rigorous, controlled" 21-month medical study is being conducted
by top University of B.C. researchers in the Canadian HIV Trials
Network. Intended to examine "new ways of treating people with very
difficult cases of heroin addiction," it will provide pharmaceutical
heroin to 88 users and oral methadone to 70 users, all living in the
Downtown Eastside.

Vancouver will be the first of three cities to conduct the trials,
with Montreal likely to begin early in 2005 and Toronto by next spring.

According to the Trials Network, participants will be "chronic drug
users who are interested in beginning the recovery process, despite
previous unsuccessful efforts to control their drug use."

They'll receive heroin or methadone each day "under the direct
supervision of a physician," with three social workers, three nurses
and employment and housing counsellors assisting.

While it is new for North America, similar programs in Europe are
successful in reducing crime and turning addicts' lives around.

In Vancouver, it will mean 158 fewer addicts in the back alleys, where
"heroin addiction [brings] millions in social costs, including crime
and chronic diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.

"For the benefit of heroin users and all of society, more research is
needed to expand treatment options." Amen.

Abbotsford MP Randy White will howl, but this guy's unhappy because
the safe-injection site is "measuring success by the number of addicts
who happen not to have died on a given day."

Well, Randy, you've got to save their lives before you can address the
addiction. Talk about putting the corpse before the cart.

As for Calvinism, its acronym "TULIP" stands for Total Depravity,
Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and
Perseverance of the Saints. 'Nuf said.