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Canadian Doctors now allowed to prescribe Heroin

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killer rin

Member
OTTAWA — The Canadian government has quietly approved new drug regulations that will permit doctors to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade heroin to treat severe addicts who have not responded to more conventional approaches.

The move means that Crosstown, a trail-blazing clinic in Vancouver, will be able to expand its special heroin-maintenance program, in which addicts come in as many as three times a day and receive prescribed injections of legally obtained heroin from a nurse free. The program is the only one of its kind in Canada and the United States but is similar to the approach taken in eight European countries.

The move by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government last week is another step in reversing the policies of the previous government, run by Conservatives, and taking a less draconian approach to the fight against addiction and drug abuse.

In April, the Trudeau government announced plans to legalize the sale of marijuana by next year, and it has appointed a task force to determine how marijuana will be regulated, sold and taxed. The government has also granted a four-year extension to the operation of Insite, a supervised injection site in Vancouver where addicts can shoot up street-obtained drugs in a controlled environment. The previous government had tried in vain for years to shut down that clinic.

The latest decision means that any physician in Canada can now apply to Health Canada for access to diacetylmorphine, as pharmaceutical-grade heroin is known, under a special-access program. The government says that this kind of treatment will be available for only a small minority of users “in cases where traditional options have been tried and proven ineffective” and that it is important to give health-care providers a variety of tools to face the opioid-overdose crisis.

Scott MacDonald, the lead physician at the Crosstown Clinic, welcomed the federal government’s decision. The clinic, which is funded by the British Columbia provincial government, opened in 2005 to conduct a clinical trial of prescription heroin and has operated ever since. It provides diacetylmorphine to 52 addicts under a special court-ordered exemption but expects that number to double over the next year if supplies can be obtained. The court order came after a constitutional challenge of a 2013 effort by the previous government to stop distribution of the drug.

Colin Carrie, a Conservative member of Parliament and the party's spokesman on health policy, said his party remains adamantly opposed to the use of prescription heroin as a treatment option for addicts. "Our policy is to take heroin out of the hands of addicts and not put it in their arms."

MacDonald says his patients are usually long-term users — one has been on heroin for 50 years — for whom standard treatments such as methadone and detox have failed after repeated attempts. “Our goal is to get people into care,” he said. (The clinic also treats another group of addicts with hydromorphone, a powerful painkiller.)

The demands of the program are high. Patients must come into the clinic two or three times a day for injections, which is disruptive for those who wish to work or take care of their families. Still, the dropout rate is relatively low. The patients are healthier, and participation in the program drastically reduces their participation in criminal activities, sharply cutting the cost to the criminal justice system.

Crosstown’s approach has garnered increasing attention in the United States, with MacDonald appearing in June to testify before a Senate committee on Capitol Hill. But the approach remains controversial. After making a presentation recently in Boston, he got a positive response from some doctors but noted that “there were physicians who would not even come up and talk to me.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...canada-has-just-approved-prescription-heroin/

Trudeau is doing all the right things. Hopefully this will allow those with addictions to more easily break them
 
B

Boem

Member
Yep, it's the right choice.

Addiction is a sickness, and it's simply about getting those people healthy again and giving them a life worth living.

The only reason to block this is ignorance and protecting your own political career. Or a complete apathy towards addicts - I am sadly aware that some people don't see them as human anymore.

Anyway, good news this.
 
D

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
qeEEMxk.jpg
 
A

Acorn

Member
My intial reaction before reading the story was "Wtf, no!" after reading it I can see the reasoning.
 
B

Boem

Member
shagg_187 said:
I mean that's awesome for those that really need it. Let's hope it's not abused like marijuana prescription.
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It's a completely different thing. This is not something that you can get a card for and pick up at a pharmacy. This is for extreme cases in close observation of (and administered by) your doctors.

There's really no way to game the system and get your kicks for fun (like the article explains).
 
U

ugaboga232

Member
This is a pretty big nothingburger given I am 99.9% sure they could already prescribe other equivalent opiates of similar strength but its nice that they are removing the stigma (heroin is nothing special, not like its carfentanil the undisputed king in crazy russian hostage crises).

Guess the big thing on a second read is that its for addiction/rehabilitation purposes which is nice.
 
F

fauxtrot

Banned
Canada is awesome. I feel for those that can't kick and stay clean. Some of my closest friends would be alive today if programs like this existed in the US.
 
W

Walpurgis

Banned
We also need way more needle injection sites across the country.

My little cousins live in a cheap apartment downtown and they are constantly running outside without shoes no matter how much I scold them. One day when I was visiting, I went to pay for parking and noticed a used needle on the ground. I panicked and left it there. When I checked again a few weeks later, the needle remained unmoved from its spot. I warned the kids about it and told them that they could get AIDS by stepping on it (a huge fear for most African immigrants) but I still see them outside without shoes from time to time...
 
K

killer rin

Member
Walpurgis said:
We also need way more needle injection sites across the country.

My little cousins live in a cheap apartment downtown and they are constantly running outside without shoes no matter how much I scold them. One day when I was visiting, I went to pay for parking and noticed a used needle on the ground. I panicked and left it there. When I checked again a few weeks later, the needle remained unmoved from its spot. I warned the kids about it and told them that they could get AIDS by stepping on it (a huge fear for most African immigrants) but I still see them outside without shoes from time to time...
Click to expand...

I completely agree. Vanvouver showed that Safe Injection sites work, now we need the Conservative fearmongering to actually come true for once and get these safe injection sites in every city across the country
 
K

killer rin

Member
the_batman said:
Hmm, i was sure they'd go the filipino route and just kill all the addicts


You're hoping the drug abusers don't find a way to abuse a clean, pure heroin supply?
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Hopefully in this case since its the doctor supervising it they would be able to better help their patients break their addiction
 
T

therealjay

Neo Member
I don't get why people are so afraid of heroin.

Drugs like hydromorphone, oxymorphone and fentanyl (which is active in the microgram level) are all as power or more and available in the United States.

I mean I get that the reason it has the stigma it does is because it's relatively easy to make and is a street drug but heroin is literally just morphine that crosses the BBB slightly faster. Having done both in the past the only real difference for me anyway is a histamine reaction with morphine.

Anyway drugs like suboxone should be the first line defense IMO. Methadone is absolutely trash for addiction treatment and is a way way way way way worse kick then any short acting opiate.

I'm honestly not sure they are trying hard enough if suboxone isn't working for their patients. It's an insanely powerful drug that's extremely hard to OD on and only gives a small amount of activity at the opiate receptors making it a perfect maintenence drug. Oh by the way it also blocks other opiates like methadone.

I guess for some dudes out there that have been at it that long maybe. At the very least safe injection standards is going to make life a lot easier. The problem with this though is that half your program is going to be going to the clinic and scoring elsewhere and there's no way you can find that out. They don't know addicts if they think that ain't going to be the case.
 
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