Study Shows the Best Drug for Heroin Addicts in Treatment is Heroin

A Canadian study shows the best drug for heroin addicts in treatment is heroin! The researchers reported Wednesday that injections of the active ingredient of heroin work far better than oral methadone for keeping addicts in treatment.

The reseachers wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that “Methadone, provided according to best practice guidelines, should remain the treament of choice for the majority of patients.

However, when that doesn’t work, they said, giving heroin’s active ingredient diacetylmorphine, appears to be  an effective alternative.

Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes of the University of British Columbia and colleagues studied 226 addicts in Montreal and Vancouver. Only 54 percent of those who got methadone stayed in treatment for a year but 88 percent  of  those who got the diacetylmorphine shots did. Also, those who got diacetylmorphine cut back on illicit drugs by 67 percent compared to 48 percent who got methadone.

Dr. Martin Schechter of the University of British Columbia, who worked on the study said, “Once you open your mind to the idea of getting people off the streets, out of crime, out of the back alleys and into clinics where they’re going to be treated by doctors and nurses and counselors, some people will say, ‘Ah ha! I get it now.’ They begin to see the pragmatic side of the argument.”

 There are approximately a million heroin addicts in North America. Since methadone treatment fails in 15 to 25 percent of the addicts who try it, perhaps, as the study shows, the drug for heroin addicts in treatment really may be heroin.