Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Contact:  http://www.smh.com.au/
Pubdate: Monday, 15 June 1998
Author: Marion Downey, Health Writer

ADDICTS' CRIME RATE FALLS IN UK HEROIN TRIAL

Further evidence that treating addicts with injectable heroin is safe and
effective is provided by a new British study, says a leading Australian
drug and alcohol expert.

The study, published in today's issue of the Medical Journal of Australia,
offered injectable heroin to 58 long-term users who had failed with other
treatments. It found considerable reductions in crime and addicts still in
treatment after three months reduced their use of illicit drugs. Their
health and social behaviour also improved, say the study's authors, from
the Centre for Research on Drugs and Health Behaviour at the Imperial
College School of Medicine in London. They observed the addicts over 15
months.

A third of the patients who were offered heroin for treatment chose
methadone instead, challenging one of the main fears of people opposed to
heroin trials - that heroin would prove irresistibly attractive to users.

After three months, 86 per cent of the patients were still in treatment.
After 12 months, 57 per cent were still being treated. Health and social
gains in the first three months were generally sustained.

Between three and six months, illicit drug injecting increased, but it was
still less than when the study started. Drug-injecting and sexual behaviour
presenting a HIV risk fell between six and 12 months.

In an accompanying editorial, the director of the Drug and Alcohol Service
at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, Dr Alex Wodak, writes that the study
provides further support for the feasibility of prescribing heroin.

The editorial welcomes the trials of heroin substitutes currently underway
in Australia, but says: "There is no current evidence that these agents are
more attractive or effective than methadone. By contrast, some trials have
found that treatment retention, which often correlates well with other
outcomes, was better for prescribed heroin than for methadone."

Prescribing injectable heroin does not eliminate illicit drug use and
crime, say the authors of the British study, although the incidence of both
"declined significantly".

Dr Wodak said the pressure for a trial in Australia would increase again as
other trials took place around the world.

A major trial will start in the Netherlands in July and a Spanish trial is
expected to start in Spain in September. Trials are also being considered
in Britain, Germany, Austria and Canada.

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Checked-by: Mike Gogulski