DRUG FIX

Help for the hopeless: New program to wean users off heroin

Heroin addiction is hell on earth, but help for a select handful of
Montreal's hardcore heroin users is finally on the way.

After years of preparation, the North American Opiate Medication
Initiative (NAOMI) is finally underway in Vancouver and coming soon to
Toronto and Montreal. The $8-million, 21-month clinical trial will
determine whether heroin-assisted therapy can help those who've not
been helped by other treatments.

The idea of treating heroin addiction as a sickness and not a crime is
new only to North America. For years, similar European studies have
reported that providing prescription heroin in controlled, supervised
environments greatly reduces crime and provides addicts counselling
and employment training services.

"Results from these European studies suggest that medically prescribed
heroin could greatly help our most troubled heroin addicts - those for
whom we have no effective treatments," said project director Dr.
Martin Schechter, head of the Department of Epidemiology and Public
Health at the University of British Columbia. Only 470 of Canada's
estimated 100,000 heroin addicts - equally divided among participating
cities - will be enrolled in the NAOMI project. Those chosen will be
randomized into two groups of 70 to 80 people - a heroin injection
group and a methadone therapy group.

The heroin group will attend the clinic up to three times a day to
receive an injection of pharmaceutical grade heroin. The others will
attend the clinic once a day for an oral dose of methadone.

The project is not without critics and skeptics.

Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen recalls a conversation he had with
U.S. drug czar John Walters two years ago over the city's plan to
establish safe injection sites.

"He called the injection houses state-assisted suicide," he said. "He
spewed all kinds of meaningless verbiage. It was the most bizarre
meeting of my life. All we wanted to do was recognize the user as
sick, not a criminal."

The project's controversial nature and the perils of public
misconception are keeping everyone involved tight-lipped. Dr. Suzanne
Brissette, director of the drug rehabilitation program at St-Luc
Hospital, wouldn't say where or when Montreal's NAOMI clinic will open
- - "there are renovations and other matters to consider," she said,
"but the project definitely will be here this spring."