The
current opioid epidemic can lead people into poverty, jail, or death.
The conventional response is to cut off the supply, such as is attempted
with the War on Drugs (and rehab programs for a lucky few). Vancouver
is trying out a different response. At the Providence Crosstown Clinic,
heroin addicts can receive medical-grade heroin, which they inject
themselves under the supervision of a nurse. It doesn't cure the
addiction, but it reduces the chances of dying of an overdose,
contracting an infection, or being poisoned by bad drugs. It also
reduces the need for addicts to commit crimes to support their habit.
Crosstown
represents an international move toward providing a full spectrum of
care for people who are addicted to drugs. It isn’t a first-line defense
against opioid addiction, and it’s not going to solve the crisis by
itself. But for a fraction of opioid users suffering from addiction
(maybe about 10 to 15 percent), other treatments won’t produce good
results, almost certainly leading users to relapse — and possibly
overdose and die.
To combat this cycle, Crosstown offers these
opioid users medical-grade heroin (called “diacetylmorphine”). Under
supervision, nurses are at the ready with the overdose antidote naloxone
and oxygen tanks in case of an emergency. These patients are the people
for whom other treatments have failed. It’s a last resort. And it
works.
Since 2011, the clinic has seen about 200 patients. None
of them, MacDonald said, have died under the clinic’s supervision. In
fact, as far as he can tell, no one has died at any prescription heroin
facility due to an overdose — not in Canada, Switzerland, Germany, or
the Netherlands.
Read about
Vancouver's heroin program at Vox
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