Free Drugs

Fighting fire with fire has always been said with a negative connotation, as if it is a bad thing that can only make things worse.  What if there was a point that the fire would reach where it was too big to put out and it started becoming a problem for everything around it? Instead of pouring resources into trying to stop it, why not just try to contain the fire, so that would not affect everything around it, but it would still thrive?  Of course, fire can always be put out with water, but heroin addiction does not have any obvious solution. There is always that chance that an addict can quit completely, but some addiction is a chronic disease that will make someone do drastic and irrational things just to get their fix. Sometimes what seems to be the most effective way to fix a problem is not the solution at all.  Instead a solution that would please both the addict and the community is present, fighting drug addiction with drugs.

Places throughout the world have adopted clinics where addicts can come in up to three times a day just to get high off the best heroin they can imagine, all for free.  Although it seems they have the wrong idea about how to deal with addiction, these free heroin clinics are not bad things.  Giving a heroin addicts free heroin will them a chance to prioritize other responsibilities besides getting heroin, decrease the spread of disease transferred through hard drug addiction, lower the amount of overdoses, and reduce crime, therefore being beneficial to both the addict and community.

Heroin is scary in the way that one try can lead to a slippery slope of addiction resulting in a life of crime, poverty, or desperation.  Thinking that an addiction is an easy thing to take care of is a very ignorant statement.  An addiction is always there and will stay there even after someone quits.  It is caused by the insane amounts of dopamine released when a drug is used.  Once an addict, always an addict.  Drug addictions are scary because no matter how close someone is to getting their life back together, one relapse and they are back to square one.  Drug addiction is defined as “a chronic, relapsing brain disease that is categorized by compulsive drug seeking and use, despite its harmful consequences (drugabuse.gov).”  Compulsive drug seeking is large part of some heroin addicts lives.   When someone is addicted to heroin, they will get high, regardless if they have the funds or not.  Addicts are known to commit acquisitive crimes in order to fund their habit.  This not only is a problem for them, but this is when it also becomes a problem for the community (neurowiki2013.wikidot.com).

The most important thing in a heroin addicts life is simply getting high.  When a person addicted to heroin cannot get high, he experiences withdrawal.  Withdrawal will ruin that person’s life until he get his fix.  The addict is tunnel-visioned and only sees using at the end of the tunnel.  There are no other paths and going backwards just means that he cannot get high and will experience all of the symptoms of withdrawal.  The addict knows in his mind the only option is using and finds the quickest way to get money.  Robbery and shoplifting make for an easy high and because committing that crime got him high and stopped the effects of withdrawal, it is always a good option for next time.  The overwhelming want, or even need of that drug can lead an addict to the point where even obtaining a secondary source to get the drug is enough motivation to shoplift even if he does not feel the need to get high at the time (neurowiki2013.wikidot.com).

Their have been similar efforts to benefit heroin addicts and the community.  Most notably are Methadone Clinics.  Methadone is an opiate similar to heroin that does not give a high as drastic as heroin, but it reduces the urge to use.  The theory is the same as that of a free heroin clinic, that it will reduce the effect addicts have on the community and it will benefit and addicts life.  However, Methadone is not as successful as the free heroin clinics.  While only 54 percent of Methadone patients return for treatment, 90 percent return for free heroin.  Studies also showed that those participants on heroin also had a lower societal cost, making it not only more effective, but cost efficient (Hiebert).

A four year trial in Britain yielded astounding results in relation to crime.  There were three trial groups; oral methadone clinic patients, intravenous methadone clinic patients, and free heroin clinic patients.  All three groups showed improvement, but the ones that got free heroin benefited the most.  The amount of crime that the patients addicted to heroin that received the drug for free committed decreased drastically.  So drastically that the number of crimes committed by these participants in the 30 days preceding the trial dropped from 1700.  In the six months after the trial had started, the same participants only committed 547 crimes.  In the 30 days before the addicts received free heroin, they committed more than three times the amount of crime they would commit on free heroin for the next six months (Faure).

Always having the means to obtain a fix takes away the need to commit a crimes against the public.  If all the addict is going to focus on is getting high and he will be a threat to people of the community if he needs to find a way to obtain it, then he should just be given heroin and then everyone is happy.  The only problem is the addict is still addicted to heroin, but that was going to happen anyway.  Of course, not just anyone is able to go get heroin when they want.  The clinic is only available for addicts that have been addicted to heroin and have made several attempts to quit the drug (pri.org).

Of course, heroin is slowly killing the addict, and of course, they are being provided with the purest death they can imagine for free.  However, without the clinic there is a chance they’d be found with a needle in their arm they were never able to pull out.  The problem is no matter how much better it would be for them to quit, they do not actually want to quit.  Regardless of the clinic or not, they will get their fix regularly.  Instead they are given treatment, kind of like a doctor’s office.  Treatment is not to benefit the addicts life. It is viewed as medical treatment and just that.  The heroin is treated like medicine and is taken seriously.  If the addict does not show up on time, it is on him and he will not be getting his fix (Roes).

Free heroin clinics do not only make patient’s addiction more bearable and livable, but it sometimes helps them kick their habit completely.  A man who goes by the name of Johan spoke about how he went to the clinic everyday until he hated his life.  “If you get dope for free, the only problem is you’re addicted to the dope.” says Johan about the clinic, “All that’s left when everything else is taken care of is the question: do I really want to keep on using this? (Roes)”  The clinic has a chance of not only helping an addict live with their addiction, but learning to live without it as well.

The treatment is measured out from the purest heroin that any addict has ever tried.  They are given sterilized needles and are left to get high.  The nurses and staff are not allowed give injections for the patients, however, the only thing they are there to do is provide the drugs and help the patient find a suitable vein (Wojcik).  There is also a smoke room where they can smoke their fix along with six others.  Here they are given the substance and pre-cut tinfoil.  They are given a drink called “nutrical” containing a portion of daily nutrition and are allowed to take free condoms and clean needles when they leave (Roes).

These clinics therefore reduce the number of dangerous variables that come into effect in a heroin junkies life.  These variables being the risk of diseases from shared needles, the rink of getting heroin laced with other dangerous substances, and the risk of having a heroin overdose.  Diseases from shared needles are very common among heroin addicts.  This is because it is not easy for them to get clean needles.  A free heroin clinic will bring the spread of needle sharing diseases such as Hepatitis and HIV/AIDS to a stop.  This is very important because of how dangerous these diseases can be and how easily they will spread.  HIV can be transmitted a number of ways and one addict can spread it to multiple people by letting the others get high.  Besides, when an addict wants to get high and desperately needs a needle, that person does not care whether or not the needle is clean. He cares that he is getting high.  This applies when it comes to impure heroin or overdosing.  When getting heroin on the street, all the person knows is that they are buying heroin, they do not know what else is in the substance that they’re getting.  This is eliminated when a free heroin clinic gives the most pure heroin there is for free (Hiebert).

Overdose is a problem that is also solved by free heroin clinics.  When at a clinic, patients are given the right amount of heroin measured for them, no more no less.  This is essential because without heroin clinics, people see getting high as getting high.  Once someone does dope for long enough, they build up a tolerance.  This tolerance can cause them to fiend for a greater high, an unachievable high since their body is so used to the drug.  Simply wanting to get higher could be the cause of their death through overdose.

These free heroin clinics have been around for some time now throughout other countries and have yielded success through them.  A free heroin clinic in Denmark said that it reduces the number of days the addicts spent on crime to a third of what it was before.  It also increased the number of addicts to find permanent housing by thirty percent, a clear step in the right direction for their lives.  These are clear signs of benefits of heroin treatment, but there has been an even greater effect.  According to a dutch study prescribed free heroin “could save the state €13,000 per person per year” because of less crime control.

These heroin clinics have given addicts the possibility at cleaning up their lives.  Once an addict does not have to focus on buying heroin or committing crimes for his fix, he can simply get high and move on with his life until he gets high again.  The community is also safer as well as the addicts.  Since the clinics provide clean needles, there is no spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.  The heroin clinics have consistently shown that crime rates among addicts that go to the clinic drop.  Therefore, the little downside (that the addicts are still addicted to heroin) is outweighed by the benefits a clinic could provide, since the addict will still be doing heroin regardless if there is a clinic or not.  Clearly, a free heroin clinic is nothing but beneficial for both the addicts and community alike.