Source: Vancouver Province (Canada) Contact: http://www.vancouverprovince.com/ Pubdate: Tue 28 Jul 1998 Author: Alan Ferguson, Staff Reporter PRESSURE BUILDS FOR FREE HEROIN Part of package to fight rampant drug misery The campaign to give junkies free heroin will escalate today. Some addicts would be offered legalized heroin free on prescription as part of a major anti-drug strategy for B.C. to be recommended by the chief provincial medical officer, Dr. John Millar, in a special report on HIV, hepatitis and drug use in the province. The prospect of legalized heroin has provoked controversy and even outrage in some sections of the community. While a similar plan has been backed by other medical groups, and some police officers, other doctors and members of the law enforcement community are strongly opposed to the idea. Deputy B.C. medical officer Shaun Peck said it would be ``most unfortunate'' if people focused too much on the heroin issue. The report, details of which were obtained in advance by The Province, also calls for: - - A major expansion in the use of the heroin substitute methadone to treat addicts; - - More resources to help provide care for children whose parents are victims of drug-related sickness; - - A ``super-committee'' to co-ordinate a provincewide approach to drug addiction; - - Consideration of the huge economic drain drug addiction and related illness impose on taxpayers. Peck, who will deliver the report today in Millar's absence on vacation, said he was ``most anxious to focus on other aspects of the report'' than the heroin trials, particularly the call for more methadone treatment. Currently in Vancouver, about 215 addicts are prescribed methadone under a federally approved program administered by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. John Blatherwick, medical director for the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board, says he hopes to increase that number fivefold this fall using money provided by the B.C. health ministry to pay for participating doctors' fees. Provincial concern over B.C.'s growing drug problem has been heightened by statistics from the chief coroner's office showing 201 drug-overdose deaths in the first six months of this year. The prediction of 400 deaths this year would be a record. Peck said the report will stress not only the deaths, but the effects on children of parents with the human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis, and the crime associated with drug use. He said public anxiety about prescribing heroin for addicts was based largely on misinformation and ``it was certainly not being recommended for everybody.'' Controlled heroin had been tried in other countries, he said, and in B.C. ``we want to watch it carefully and [it would only be considered] after an extension of the methadone program, and even then only with the proper support programs.'' Any experimental prescribing of heroin would first have to be authorized by the federal government. If such trials go ahead, they would be the first in Canada. Blatherwick said ``any implication that this [report] is just another push for legalized heroin'' was wrong. ``It is a much broader review of overall strategy,'' he said. Giving heroin to addicts for whom methadone does not work ``is one of the things that has to be considered in the overall battle'' against drugs, he said. Some doctors and drug-addiction counsellors who have seen the provincial report questioned its findings. While applauding an extension of the methadone program, they queried whether the government would come up with the necessary funds for ongoing recovery treatment. - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski