PRESSURE BUILDS FOR FREE HEROIN

Part of package to fight rampant drug misery

The campaign to give junkies free heroin will escalate today.

Some addicts would be offered legalized heroin free on prescription as part
of a major anti-drug strategy for B.C. to be recommended by the chief
provincial medical officer, Dr. John Millar, in a special report on HIV,
hepatitis and drug use in the province.

The prospect of legalized heroin has provoked controversy and even outrage
in some sections of the community.

While a similar plan has been backed by other medical groups, and some
police officers, other doctors and members of the law enforcement community
are strongly opposed to the idea.

Deputy B.C. medical officer Shaun Peck said it would be ``most
unfortunate'' if people focused too much on the heroin issue.

The report, details of which were obtained in advance by The Province, also
calls for:

- - A major expansion in the use of the heroin substitute methadone to treat
addicts;

- - More resources to help provide care for children whose parents are
victims of drug-related sickness;

- - A ``super-committee'' to co-ordinate a provincewide approach to drug
addiction;

- - Consideration of the huge economic drain drug addiction and related
illness impose on taxpayers.

Peck, who will deliver the report today in Millar's absence on vacation,
said he was ``most anxious to focus on other aspects of the report'' than
the heroin trials, particularly the call for more methadone treatment.

Currently in Vancouver, about 215 addicts are prescribed methadone under a
federally approved program administered by the College of Physicians and
Surgeons.

Dr. John Blatherwick, medical director for the Vancouver/Richmond Health
Board, says he hopes to increase that number fivefold this fall using money
provided by the B.C. health ministry to pay for participating doctors' fees.

Provincial concern over B.C.'s growing drug problem has been heightened by
statistics from the chief coroner's office showing 201 drug-overdose deaths
in the first six months of this year. The prediction of 400 deaths this
year would be a record.

Peck said the report will stress not only the deaths, but the effects on
children of parents with the human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis,
and the crime associated with drug use. He said public anxiety about
prescribing heroin for addicts was based largely on misinformation and ``it
was certainly not being recommended for everybody.''

Controlled heroin had been tried in other countries, he said, and in B.C.
``we want to watch it carefully and [it would only be considered] after an
extension of the methadone program, and even then only with the proper
support programs.''

Any experimental prescribing of heroin would first have to be authorized by
the federal government. If such trials go ahead, they would be the first in
Canada.

Blatherwick said ``any implication that this [report] is just another push
for legalized heroin'' was wrong. ``It is a much broader review of overall
strategy,'' he said.

Giving heroin to addicts for whom methadone does not work ``is one of the
things that has to be considered in the overall battle'' against drugs, he
said.

Some doctors and drug-addiction counsellors who have seen the provincial
report questioned its findings.

While applauding an extension of the methadone program, they queried
whether the government would come up with the necessary funds for ongoing
recovery treatment.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski