Helping Heroin Addicts by Giving Them Free Heroin

In Vancouver, Canada, heroin has started to take over the drug community. With more and more people using heroin each day the government has been trying to come up with ways to help the addicts before the entire city is filled with heroin addicts. To help these addicts cope with addiction a clinic has opened up, called Insite, that will give addicts free heroin under the super vision of nurses and with the proper equipment to make sure the patients are safe from disease like HIV and hepatitis.

Not just anyone can get the free heroin offered by the clinic. The clinic is there as a last resort to people who have tried everything else and failed. Other places in Europe are using this method as a way to get their heroin problems under control. The clinics there are divided into three groups that patients belong too. There is a group that wants to cut back on heroin without completely quitting, a group that wants to get heroin the legal way without having to commit crimes, and addicts that just need a fix (Jeppe Wojcik, 2012).

The clinic is a form of harm reduction says Allen Schauffler, a Pacific Northwest Correspondent for Al Jazeera. The treatment is to reduce the likelihood of the patients ending up dead in an alley or breaking into someone’s home to rob them and get money for their habit says Schauffler. Getting the addicts off of heroin by using heroin doesn’t sound like a good way of doing it, but that’s not what this clinic in Vancouver is designed to do. It’s designed to control the crime rates that are associated with drugs like heroin. The addicts now have a place to get their guaranteed fixed without having to go and rob someone and possibly hurt or kill someone or themselves in the process.

Places in Europe have been successful in reducing their crime rates with this program. In a trial case in Europe a group of participants were spilt up in heroin addicts into three different groups and one they gave heroin too, and the other two received methadone. All three groups showed improvement in the lifestyles of the addicts, the heroin group showed the most improvement out of the three. The crime rate with those in the groups had dropped from 1700 in the first 30 days of the trial to 547 six months into the trial (Gaelle Faure/London, 2009).

Not only do these clinics help to lower the crime rates and help to make the streets safer by taking away the crime aspect in using heroin, but these clinics also improve the lives of the addicts as well. With addicts no longer having to worry about where their next dose of heroin is coming from, they are free to get back to their normal lives. Most heroin addicts find that it’s hard to support their habit and hold down a job as well. They are constantly worrying about heroin so nothing else matters to them. They are always thinking about where their next fix is coming from so they don’t have time for a job. When they run out of money and can’t afford their heroin they go and do things like rob people or places, prostitution, and other crimes to get their money for heroin. Now that all that is eliminated they can start to worry about themselves and their families. Katrine Schepelern Johansen, a post-doc in anthropology the University of Copenhagen says that “Some users have better contact with their families” and that some “have found the energy to take care of their physical illnesses.”

Johansen talks about the positive aspects of these heroin clinics that are operating in Europe as well as he negative aspects. Johansen says that the patients get frustrated because they have to go to the clinic twice a day every day of the week. Frustration with the addicts as well as the nurses that are supervising the addicts. The addicts have to inject themselves and the nurses are not allowed to help. When they are trying to shoot up the addicts can’t always find a vain which not only aggravates them but the nurses as well since they can’t help and can only watch the struggling patient in front of them.

Despite the frustration among the addicts in the treatment and the nurses that work there, these heroin clinics are usually regarded as successful because of the low dropout rate compared to other treatment centers. In Denmark, of the 26 that dropped out, the majority wanted to seek a treatment that did not involve heroin use as the form of medication being used (Jeppe Wojcik, 2009).

As good as these clinics are in accomplishing their goals of getting the addict’s lives back and lowering crime rates in the area, there are some down sides to giving out free heroin. In recent months at the heroin clinic in Vancouver, there have been several overdoses (Matt Schiavenza, 2014). The overdoses are believed to have been caused by a street-purchased drug called fentanyl. Fentanyl is a highly dangerous substance that looks like heroin and has been increasingly sold on the streets (Mark Hume, 2014). The clinic has trained staff that administer naloxone which is a medication that can reverse the effects of an overdose from opioids and save someone’s life. It’s hard to tell if the heroin that someone is using is mixed with fentanyl or is pure fentanyl. Dr. Jane Buxton, head of harm reduction at BC Centre for Disease Control, says that the rise of fentanyl is why clinics like the one in Vancouver are important. It is important to have someone around when using heroin or any drug who knows what to do in time of disaster. In three days there were 36 overdoses at Insite, says Gavin Wilson, a spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health. The clinic, in an average week, has 10 to 12 overdoses. Of all the overdoses, thanks to the trained supervising staff, none have resulted in death (Mark Hume, 2014).

You have to take the good with the bad in this situation. The people that are going to these clinics, like the one in Vancouver are at the end of the line and have nowhere else to turn. Even though there are overdoses happening often they are being controlled and treated the correct way. The cause of the overdoses isn’t because of the clinic itself, but outside sources. When the addicts get used to getting their heroin from the clinics instead of the street, the number of overdoses will decrease and they can receive the benefits that the clinics have to offer. The clinics have more positive outcomes then negative. Trials have shown that they achieve what they set out to do. Crime rates are lowered in the areas and the people that are using see significant improvements in their lives.

By Vancouver opening up heroin clinics they are giving the addicts another chance to be a normal part of society and not someone who ends up dead with a needle in their arm. The clinics get their addiction under control and change their lives by giving them the sense of security they didn’t had before and taking away the stress they did have. Clinics like Insite are the last salvation for the addicts that were being controlled by heroin. The clinics not only help the individual get their life back, but also make their city safer by reducing the drug related crimes caused by these addicts that are now seeking treatment. It appeals to the users because they aren’t getting off one drug just to get addicted to another like other treatments such as methadone. They are getting their addiction under control by using the same drug that was causing their problems. As crazy as it sounds, giving heroin addicts free heroin helps the addicts more than it hurts them.

Work Cited

Wojcik, Jeppe. “Heroin Clinics Improve Addicts’ Lives.” Sciencenordic.com. Science Nordic, 1 May 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

“Vancouver Combats Heroin by Giving Its Addicts the Best Smack in the World.” Public Radio International. PRI, 9 Feb. 2015. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Faure, Gaëlle, and London. “Why Doctors Are Giving Heroin to Heroin Addicts.” Time. Time Inc., 28 Sept. 2009. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Schiavenza, Matt. “Vancouver Experiments With Prescription Heroin.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 23 Nov. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Hume, Mark. “Flood of Drug Overdoses in Vancouver Underscores Need for Greater Outreach.” The Globe and Mail. N.p., 16 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.