NAOMI KEEPS MUM BEFORE ELECTION

Four days before Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper dropped the writ
to kick off the federal election campaign, Dr. Martin Schechter was
delivering a paper at a drug addiction conference in Switzerland. The
paper dealt with preliminary results of the controversial NAOMI trial,
the North American Opiate Medication Initiative. Schechter is NAOMI's
"principal investigator" in Vancouver.

For the past three years, Schechter and his colleagues in Vancouver
and Montreal have been recruiting drug addicts and putting them on
regular doses of heroin, methadone or Dilaudid.

Originally, the project involved three Canadian cities and three
cities south of the border. But White House politics and drug
addiction being what they are, American scientists were forced by
their federal government to bail. The third Canadian city, Toronto,
also bowed out.

In the end, with a Liberal government in Ottawa, the trials were
funded to the tune of $8.1 million and Health Canada granted approval
to import pure heroin produced in government-controlled overseas labs.

Those attending the conference in Switzerland heard nothing
particularly surprising about Schechter's results. While this type of
drug trial was new to North America, Switzerland did similar trials
back in 1996 followed by Germany and the Netherlands. Through the 12
months of the Canadian trials, those receiving regular doses of heroin
under controlled conditions developed more regular lives. They became
more stable and engaged less frequently in anti-social or criminal
behaviour.

The program's "retention rate," the number of subjects who stuck with
the program, was higher for those on heroin than those on methadone.
The small percentage of participants receiving Dilaudid were not
sufficient to have meaningful results.

According to NAOMI staff, it was Schechter's intention to make his
results public in Canada on Sept. 17. But that was before the writ was
dropped. Once Harper called an election, that release date
disappeared, leading other scientists and drug activists to suggest
Schechter and his crew were withholding the data to avoid NAOMI
becoming an election issue.

Schechter's colleague in the project, Dr. David Marsh, denied this
last week. He said all the data was still being worked on and the
final report to Health Canada had yet to be written.

But there is good reason to be skeptical about this
excuse.

Harper and his Tories have made it clear they are not interested in
any solution for the devastating impact of drug addiction that
involves the use of illegal drugs. Other countries that have had
similar trials with similar results have incorporated heroin treatment
into their health care programs. The ideologically driven Harper has
so far proven unmoved by science in this area. Just look at his
ongoing battle over the existence of Vancouver's supervised injection
site.

Schechter and his colleagues continue to seek government funding for
their future work. Why cause a small storm in the midst of an
election, particularly when it initially appeared the Tories could be
returned with a majority? After all, waiting a few weeks won't change
the NAOMI results.

There is another point to be made here. In the past, Schechter and his
staff were caught out (as reported here) manipulating the release of
information about NAOMI. At the time--in January 2005--they wanted a
big bang from the media just before the program was approved by Ottawa.

They struck a deal with what they referred to at the time as "media of
authority" to release the story of the initiative. Nationally, that
included Saturday Night Magazine and The Globe and Mail.
Internationally, they had The Economist on the hook.

These people of science have proved in the past to be political
animals. It seems they haven't changed.

NAOMI results are expected later this week.