HOUSE APPROVES HEROIN TREATMENT BILL

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - The House approved legislation on Wednesday
that would make it easier for office-based physicians to use federally
controlled substances to treat patients addicted to heroin and other
opiates. The vote was 412-1.

The ``Drug Addition Treatment Act'' would allow physicians who are already
registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration and qualified to treat
opiate-dependent patients to obtain three-year waiver from separate
requirements imposed by the DEA to dispense schedule IV or V drugs for
maintenance and detoxification treatment. The bill would also waive state
and local requirements.

The bill is intended to make it easier for physicians to dispense
buprenorphine, an alternative to methadone in treating opiate addiction.
Buprenorphine's FDA approval as a schedule V controlled substance is
expected in the near future. According to a report from the House Commerce
Committee, which approved the bill last October, buprenorphine, particularly
in combination with the drug naloxone, has been found not only to be
effective in helping opiate addicts, but to have a far lower potential for
abuse than methadone.

Availability in physician offices, said the committee report, could make it
easier for addicts to obtain treatment in areas without methadone programs,
or if they do not qualify for treatment because they have not been addicted
for two years, as many drug treatment programs require.

The bill, said its sponsor, House Commerce Chairman Thomas Bliley, R-Va.,
``would open up a new front in the war on drugs,'' and ``makes a start''
towards addressing the problem of addiction.

But Democrats said it is premature to provide waivers for a drug not yet
approved by the FDA. They also argued that the drug's likely price--$10 per
day compared to the $1 per day for methadone--could put it out of reach of
many addicts. Because many addicts who currently do not get treatment also
lack the income or insurance to cover such treatment, ``most heroin addicts
in the treatment gap will not be able to afford the office based treatment
contemplated by the bill,'' wrote committee Democrats in the report.

During the brief floor debate on the bill Tuesday, Democrats also complained
that more addicts would be helped if the Republicans who control Congress
would get on with legislation to reauthorize the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Administration. ``The real drug addiction treatment act is the SAMSHA
reauthorization,'' said Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.