HELPING HEROIN ADDICTS

It is a useful step forward in the country's quest for appropriate
health care for addicts. Heroin is a relatively safe opiate as a test
case: As long as addicts have their fix, they can live fairly
normally. Constantly on the hunt for an illicit supply, addicts are
vulnerable to disease, such as HIV or hepatitis, arrest and homelessness.

The study follows a similar three-year trial project in Vancouver and
Montreal that focussed on addicts who repeatedly failed other
treatment programs. That study's results, reported last fall,
mirrored those in other countries that have used free provision of
heroin to reduce harm to addicts. It had good retention of
participants, whose health improved notably and found the use of
illicit drugs fell off, as did the frequency of arrests. In short,
the lives of participants were healthier and more hopeful.

These results are challenging to the federal Tories who have insisted
taxpayers cannot be in the business of paying for an addict's habit.
Last year, Vancouver's Insite clinic was on the verge of shutting
down when a British Columbia Supreme Court extended its minister's
permit, which exempted it from the Controlled Drugs and Substances
Act. The clinic, which provides free needles but not drugs, has
proven that a safe, supervised environment saves lives by preventing
overdoses and assisting with the health issues of addicts.

Ottawa appears determined to shut down Insite, pursuing an appeal to
that decision, which effectively tied the government's hands in its
power to regulate a clinic providing an illegal drug. While
understandable in principle, the government's continued battle over a
reasonable, workable health care program for addicts is counterproductive.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is adamant that taxpayers' money ought
to be directed to treatment and prevention. The experience of
countless drug programs that aim to get users to go clean speaks to
the futility of this approach. It makes waste of an investment that
returns very little on any dollar.

Mr. Harper's cabinet continues to regard what is often referred to as
"harm-reduction" therapy as subsidizing drug habits. In fact, such
therapy speaks directly to the government's own goals: treatment and
prevention. Participants became healthier and used heroin less often.
Indeed, a Toronto-based analysis pegged the health and other social
costs associated with untreated drug use, for opiate addicts such as
heroin users, was at about $45,000 annually.

Canada, it is estimated, has something approaching 60,000 opiate
addicts. Aside from the human toll exacted by forcing heroin users to
the margins of society where the criminal element reigns, the cost of
enforcing a drug policy that fails miserably in its goals is far
greater than funding clinics such as Insite.

That the Harper administration has not shut down studies that seek to
serve the best interests of addicts is a glimmer of hope that someday
federal drug policy, too, will buckle under growing evidence and
begin to serve the best interests of the country.