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InvisibleSynthe
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How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives
    #18768469 - 08/28/13 01:29 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

August 27, 2013  | 
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/how-prescribing-heroin-could-actually-save-lives?paging=off


Another International Overdose Awareness Day (Aug. 31) approaches and many people are still focused on prescription opioid drugs and their role in overdose fatalities. Those do indeed play a big role. But another threat is snaking through the country and we need to plan for its impact.

Here comes the heroin.

Reports are coming in across the country, from places like Montgomery, Maryland,Ellensberg, Washington,  Concord, New Hampshire, throughout Kentucky and in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Heroin use and heroin overdoses are growing.  According to recent research by SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), the number of first-time heroin users has nearly doubled lately, from around 90,000 “first-timers” in 2006 to a whopping 178,000 in 2011. Our normal approaches (crackdown, get tough, prohibit, arrest) have never done much good long-term. Will anything be different this time?

Some people, including members of law enforcement, link the rise in heroin use to crackdowns on prescription drug abuse. We have been raiding pain clinics, thwarting ‘doctor shoppers,’ sentencing non-violent people, including elderly people, to long stretches in prison for low-level drug prescription drug sales. We know how to crackdown—but we seem ignorant when it comes to what to do with all those addicted people we’ve “cracked down” on. You may thwart them with your database at the pharmacy, but they’re still addicted. Now what?

Abuse-deterrent formulations of drugs and prescription drug take-back days are well and good, but they don’t reverse an overdose, they don’t educate about drug safety and they don’t provide ready access to treatment. They don’t address the factors that cause people to turn to drugs for relief and they don’t acknowledge the uncomfortable fact that despite our best efforts, for some portion of the population, rehabs won’t work, methadone won’t work, and neither will cold turkey, tough love, prison, prayer or 12-Step.

Knowing that is true, we should take positive steps to address that reality with a health-oriented approach. We should bring the most marginalized populations back into the fold, increasing their interactions with physicians, counselors and other supportive service providers, without fear of arrest or incarceration, and without demanding abstinence.

We should consider the benefits of physician-supervised, prescription pharmaceutical heroin maintenance programs. Also called HAT (heroin assisted treatment) and HMT (heroin maintenance treatment), this treatment has been working for a number of years in places like Switzerland and Germany. These programs are predicated on the knowledge that some people, despite numerous efforts, cannot or will not stop using heroin and that their continued use in unsupervised settings creates costs related to arrests and incarceration, increased healthcare expenses, supporting the illicit drug trade, overdose, and loss of employment and housing.

These programs provide pharmaceutical heroin (diacetylmorphine) to a limited number of people who can demonstrate multiple failed attempts to achieve abstinence in other drug treatment programs, a multiyear history of injecting heroin, and in some cases physical co-morbidities. They visit the clinic one to three times per day and inject the drug under a doctor’s supervision. They get off the street, out of public view and engage in a variety of other therapeutic services.

Sounds edgy, but it works. Reductions in crime, reductions in arrests, reductions in activity in open-air drug markets, reductions in fatal overdose, not to mention promotion of social integration, including considerable improvements in participants’ housing situation and fitness for work.  That’s not speculation. That’s fact.

Their positive results have been published in highly credible peer-reviewed journals. The efficacy is there, the research is there. Why aren’t we at least trying this approach?

We need to get over our emotional response to the word ‘heroin’ and look at this treatment for what it is--opiate replacement therapy, the same premise as methadone provision. This treatment is proven to help address the most severe, persistent and problematic heroin use while reducing costs to taxpayers and improving outcomes.

When it comes to addiction, every option should be on the table. That’s just common sense. Anything that works, or shows great promise, however we feel about it, must at least be discussed—seriously and carefully. We know of excellent ways forward to manage addiction, but we need the courage and sense to take them.


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OfflineCamwritesgonzo
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: Synthe]
    #18768622 - 08/28/13 02:12 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

When the younglings start weening off the foil boat and start shooting up is where the biggest problem lies. Those that survive the weening are at risk of getting a hot dose if they jump from dealer to dealer, then what they thought was a little joy pop can turn them purple and make them shit in their pants, and that's their story.


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"I've always maintained that reality is for those who can't face drugs."-Tom Waits
"I feel the same way about disco as I feel about herpes."-Hunter S. Thompson
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?


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Offlinemeatables
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Registered: 08/13/13
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: Camwritesgonzo]
    #18769273 - 08/28/13 04:48 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

As for reformation, imo, probly never gonna happen...
We all know the stats... 85% of incarcerated ppl in for non-violent drug offenses...
The prison system's big business in this country and reformation means they lose...
Once the prison corporations of america are separated from govenment then things might change...
Or start to anyway.


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Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you!


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OfflineCamwritesgonzo
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: meatables]
    #18770280 - 08/28/13 08:11 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Smack is the great pacifier, it gives people license not to give a shit. The more the government can keep people from giving a shit about the conundrum they're in, the better that government has it when they want to go to war for oil and other resources. :syringe:


--------------------
"I've always maintained that reality is for those who can't face drugs."-Tom Waits
"I feel the same way about disco as I feel about herpes."-Hunter S. Thompson
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?


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Offlinedakotaellis166
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: Camwritesgonzo]
    #18771938 - 08/29/13 06:00 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Camwritesgonzo said:
Smack is the great pacifier, it gives people license not to give a shit. The more the government can keep people from giving a shit about the conundrum they're in, the better that government has it when they want to go to war for oil and other resources. :syringe:



agreed!


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i don't always give a fuck,
but when i do. . . i actually don't.


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Invisiblesmack
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Registered: 08/05/09
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: Camwritesgonzo]
    #18771963 - 08/29/13 06:14 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Camwritesgonzo said:
Smack is the great pacifier, it gives people license not to give a shit. The more the government can keep people from giving a shit about the conundrum they're in, the better that government has it when they want to go to war for oil and other resources. :syringe:



I do what I can. :smug:


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14:31


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OfflineAbsent Minded
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: smack]
    #18772463 - 08/29/13 10:41 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

smack said:
Quote:

Camwritesgonzo said:
Smack is the great pacifier, it gives people license not to give a shit. The more the government can keep people from giving a shit about the conundrum they're in, the better that government has it when they want to go to war for oil and other resources. :syringe:



I do what I can. :smug:



:hahthatsrich:


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Beats
More Beats

sheekle: fuck peace love and unity
sheekle: death despair and misery
sheekle: is where it's at


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OfflineCamwritesgonzo
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: smack]
    #18772491 - 08/29/13 10:47 AM (10 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

smack said:
Quote:

Camwritesgonzo said:
Smack is the great pacifier, it gives people license not to give a shit. The more the government can keep people from giving a shit about the conundrum they're in, the better that government has it when they want to go to war for oil and other resources. :syringe:



I do what I can. :smug:



:ohyou::raisemyglass:Well played!


--------------------
"I've always maintained that reality is for those who can't face drugs."-Tom Waits
"I feel the same way about disco as I feel about herpes."-Hunter S. Thompson
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?


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Offlinemexicanjewlucas
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: Camwritesgonzo]
    #18775042 - 08/29/13 08:45 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

shouldn't this apply for all drugs?
i use H and recently started shooting but i am very careful, every new batch i get i weigh a small amount to test the gear knowing that each batch is different. i guess it might be different if i was addicted.
buying your H or any drug from a pharmacy where every does will be the same strength and quality controlled has always made sense to me. if all batches are the same quality you know how much you will need and the risk of an OD drops.


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"We can get 2 birds stoned at once."


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OfflineCamwritesgonzo
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Re: How Prescribing Heroin Could Actually Save Lives [Re: mexicanjewlucas]
    #18775293 - 08/29/13 09:42 PM (10 years, 5 months ago)

It should definitely apply to all drugs. When you're dealing with so called "street grade" drugs, the instance of getting the same thing twice decreases as the size of the city increases. That's one of the biggest problems I see with the drug war is the fact that purity can only be measured to a certain degree with quite a few drugs without the means to perform rigid analyses. If there was a source for what could be called clean drugs, in measured doses, this problem would decrease. You'd still have people pushing the envelope and street dealers playing the middle man, but you'd also have a lot more people going to the source and getting quality product with less risk of A getting screwed over/ harmed and B overdosing.


--------------------
"I've always maintained that reality is for those who can't face drugs."-Tom Waits
"I feel the same way about disco as I feel about herpes."-Hunter S. Thompson
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
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