Vancouver’s Heroin Clinics

In Vancouver, Canada heroin has started to take over the drug community.  As the use of heroin has become more popular the government has tried to come up with ideas to help the addicts who are using heroin. A clinic has started to give out free heroin to addicts as a form of medication. When every other treatment has failed these addicts their last option is the drug that has caused all of their problems. Other treatments are meant to cure their addiction but this treatment focuses more on the lives of the addicts.

The goal of this treatment isn’t to rid the addicts of the urge to use heroin but instead to improve their lives and get their addiction under control. Heroin takes a toll on the users health each time it is used. Besides the health of the user, heroin has a huge impact on the life of the user. Someone who is hooked on heroin hands their entire life over to the drug. Their life begins to revolve around heroin. They are always thinking about where their next dose is going to come from, where they are going to get the money for it and how their going to get it. Since a heroin addict’s life is controlled by heroin it’s hard for them to hold down a job, so to get the money to support their habit they have to go out and commit petty crimes or sell their bodies.

Since the clinic offers free heroin the addicts can have security in knowing where their next fi will come from and can start to get their lives back together. Allen Schauffler, a correspondent of Al Jazeera, calls this “harm reduction.” By giving the addicts a small dose to feed their need, it reduces the risk of them ending up dead in an alley from an overdose or having to sell their bodies to support their habit. Schauffler refers to this treatment given by the clinics as blackmail. He says that by giving the addicts free heroin it’s admitting that these addicts are hopeless and that the government is just trying to make them less dangerous by giving into their addiction. Jim O’Rourke, a man that Schauffler talked to about this treatment, says that “we might as well put a bullet in their head” and that “we’re killing them just in a nice way.” The only thing that the treatment really does is try to get the addiction under control. Since it’s offered as a last result, Schauffler is right in saying that the government could just be trying to make them less dangerous since there is nothing else to do.

Besides Canada, European countries have been using this treatment for a few years and have seen positive results from the treatment. Danish addicts using the treatment have seen dramatic changes in their lives. Stress levels have dropped among the addicts and according to Katrine Schepelern Johansen, a post-doc in anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, some have formed better relationships with their families and some have gotten the energy to finally take care of themselves.

The clinics in Europe have been divided into different groups based on the individual’s goals. There are groups that want to cut down on heroin and hope to quit and start a new life, other groups want to fight their addiction and stop their life of crime that they have started to support their habit. Another group is made for the individuals who only want to get their fix and continue the drug use. Johansen says that this treatment is successful because it creates less stress and “less stress makes it easier for them to get through the day.”

These heroin clinics are seen as more successful than other treatment clinics because they have a lower dropout rate. Some do dropout but for reasons like wanting to get treatment without the use of heroin. These heroin clinics accomplish more than just getting heroin addiction under control. According to the Danish National Board of Health, addicts who abuse alcohol have started to drink 50 percent less and the abuse of painkillers among the addicts in the treatment has dropped to a third of what it was.

Work Cited

Wojcik, Jeppe. “Heroin Clinics Improve Addicts’ Lives.” Sciencenordic.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2015.  http://sciencenordic.com/heroin-clinics-improve-addicts-lives

“Vancouver Combats Heroin by Giving Its Addicts the Best Smack in the World.” Public Radio International. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2015.  http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-04/vancouver-combats-heroin-giving-its-addicts-best-smack-world