The arising battle of heroin addiction is prominent in the city of Vancouver, Canada.  Heroin addiction is a very unstable and extremely dangerous. In many cases this addiction leads users to commit crimes to support their habit.   Addicts are  more focused on getting their next high then they are about using heroin safely.  Normal routes of defeating this addiction include giving the heroin user methadone, which is a substitute for heroin, even though 15-25% of addicts do not react to the prescripted drug.  Vancouver has a taken on a new way of battling heroin addiction.  By giving the user the very own drug that is corrupting them.

Fighting fire with fire, Vancouver has set up clinics which gives heroin users free prescribed heroin.  At clinics such as Vancouver’s Providence Medical Clinic, the addicts are given a safe place to ‘shoot up’ while being supervised by medical personnel, incase anything may go wrong.  They are given sterile needles which helps decrease the factor of disease spread through dirty needles in common use.  Users who use these clinics also have no fear of being arrested, because safe use is condoned in them. 

Studies made in Europe with these programs have shown a positive outcome, with reduced crime and improved public health.  Giving heroin to heroin addicts to help them fight their addiction may seem counterintuitive, yet these clinics have shown many positive results.   Giving this option of ‘treatment’ to heroin users is exactly what some of them need.  Some do not respond to regular treatment techniques and having this option is extremely beneficial in an addicts life.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/vancouver-experiments-with-prescription-heroin/383086/

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/11/25/prescription-heroin-vancouver-salome_n_6215188.html