HEROIN HAND OUT?

Our View

The U.S. should take advantage of results of the Canadian
study.

Free heroin.

It's a user's dream. It's other people's nightmare.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research recently added a clinical
trial named the North American Opiate Medication Initiative.

Heroine users will sign up for the program at three sites throughout
the country. Half of the participants will be given
pharmaceutical-grade heroin.

The other half will get methadone, which is a treatment for heroin
addiction and cravings.

Try to get over the initial shock of a government doling out a very
harmful, addictive substance. After the controversy settles, the
results could prove to be a very good thing for humanity.

Who knows when the next miracle will arise from testing?

Overall, $8.1 million will be spent by Canada.

The study certainly comes with a large price tag and controversy, but
if some great breakthrough in cravings for drugs or in an insight into
a cure for the addiction, can a price really be hung on those types of
results?

Now, if these studies were going on in the United States, there might
be a different story.

Right now, another country is conducting tests and experiments that
could greatly benefit not just our country, but many others. And it is
all at no cost to us.

Why shouldn't Americans be in opposition?

We stand to benefit. Our politicians don't have to fight about it. We
don't have to pay for it.

If only all medical research could be so simple.

All boundaries aside, plenty of people out there who use drugs, at the
heart of things, want to quit.

They know what they are doing is ruining their health, their
relationships, their life along so the health, relationships and lives
of others they are connected to.

They are separate people from their addictions. Unfortunately,
addiction sometimes just won't let go.

Don't think that addiction of that caliber doesn't reside in Lafayette
County. It's everywhere.

And if it takes a little controversy and a one-time payout to find a
cure for addiction, then it seems to be well worth the long-term
effects it may bring.