Street Roots •
Sept. 16-22, 2016
E d it o r ia l
Page 3
Canada’s policy on heroin another lesson for U.S.
t’s been nearly 100 years since the U.S. sent
heroin underground, banning the sale of what was,
at the time, a marginalized opiate.
In the time since, heroin use has reached ever-
increasing levels, spanning all socioeconomic classes
and touching every community, town and metropolis in
America.
It’s well passed the time to rethink our approach to
what is, and has always been, a dire health problem
coopted into political and economic power struggles.
In considering a better
path, the U.S. has a new
p o n í a
leader to look to. Canada
recently announced it will be
legalizing prescription
heroin for severe addicts.
Soon, any sanctioned physician will be able to
prescribe diacetylmorphine, a pharmaceutical-grade
heroin, to addicts for whom other courses of
treatment have proven ineffective.
Why?
Because - when you peel back the hubris - it
works. Canada’s move is the first serious step forward
on this front from a North American country, but it
follows the path of European nations that have
embraced more progressive - and successful -
attitudes around harm reduction.
This isn’t a free-for-all, open-the-floodgates proposal,
but a measured decision in the face of real research.
Research and real results, as evidenced in the
Vancouver Crosstown Clinic, which has operated a
heroin maintenance program since 2005.
The U.S. and Oregon should take note of the
Canadian initiative, not through the eyes of law
I
spans Vietnam War veterans to kids still years away
from buying their first beer. Street Roots has covered
this issue for many years, hearing directly from the
addicts voices and from mavericks looking to shake up
policy.
What is often seldom understood about heroin is
that after the addiction has taken hold, it isn’t so much
about the high any more. It is used to maintain, to
stave off sickness, and it’s a terrible addiction to try to
shake. On the streets, compounded by desperation,
it’s nearly impossible. The illegality of drugs make
them more dangerous - from the lack of quality or
potency measurements, to the deterrents to seeking
out help when needed and care when essential.
On the policy side, innovative ideas always have an
uphill battle against the war on drugs mentality. But
there’s a growing chorus to move beyond the taboo,
just as we have with alcoholism and as we are with the
medical applications of marijuana. Portland has already
moved the ball forward with broadening distribution of
overdose-reversing drug nolaxone and sanctioning a
syringe-exchange program - actions that save lives and
give people a second chance.
Included in Multnomah County’s latest Domicile
Unknown, the fifth annual report of deaths among the
homeless, is a recommendation to evaluate the
feasibility of a safe injection site. The first ever has
already been proposed by the mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., as
a conduit to get people suffering from addiction the
health care and recovery services they need. Such
sites exist in Canada, Europe and Australia. There
already exists a roadmap, decades long, of lessons
enforcement, but through the eyes of health care.
learned and successes to be followed.
Canada’s Providence Health Care (not affiliated with
Providence Health and Services in the U.S.)
conducted North America’s first clinical trial of
prescribed heroin at its clinic from 2005 to 2008.
“The result of the study found that patients given
injectable diacetylmorphine were more likely to stay in
treatment, and more likely to reduce illegal drugs as
well as other illegal activities than those patients being
treated with oral methadone,” stated the report.
In Portland, we have a chronic heroin problem that
the federal approach, the so-called war on drugs, has
failed in terms of protecting the health and welfare of
Americans. Where it has succeeded is in actually
fostering hard drug use and putting hundreds of
thousands of people who suffer from addiction behind
bars, into poverty and on a downward spiral.
We have to let go of our stereotypes and stigmas.
We have to shake the industrial prison complex
mentality. It’s time to embrace health.
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P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F INSITE
Supplies for heroin use a t Insite, Vancouver, B .C ./s safe injection site.
Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali
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