Medical Heroin
What treatments are available for heroin addiction?
First choice treatment for heroin addiction since 1965, has been Methadone. Methadone was launched in New York by Doleinize wonder. Two doctors who rediscovered a painkiller that they found out had several advantages over taking street drugs. One being it was having a much longer half-life, which meant it would stabilize your life if you took it, because you were not experiencing the up-and-down roller coasters. The kind of rides that you have if you take heroin. So Methadone was a pharmacological cure, it was conceived of in the beginning. It was also oversold one could say, because it was not as much as a solution as one expected from the very first results. But Methadone treatment spread as a treatment modality for the United States to the rest of the world. And it still goes on as one of the main treatments for heroin addiction. Later on, came other kinds of Opiates that were produced by the pharmaceutical industry. One of the most promising now is Bruprenofine, which has the preference in many countries. And it has taken a preference over methadone treatment.
How effective is heroin addiction treatment?
Heroin addiction treatment is very, very effective if you ask people who work in the treatment of addictions. They usually will be looking at the people who stay in treatment and not the dropouts. They sort of collect stories about how people were cured. That's a good thing and a nice thing.But in general, one could say that we don't have that much of a cure if you really do surveys and evaluations. It shows that the effects are rather minor over a short term, that is. In general, one could also say that a population of addicts will get out of it in quite a large proportion over a large span of years.
How expensive is heroin treatment?
Treatment of Heroin addiction with prescription of a dug like Methadone is very, very cheap. It depends on the setting, the logistics, how much control you want to have, what the clinics are like, and also if you have any kind of supportive therapy, the amount of that will of course increase costs, but the basic cost of the chemical Methadone is very, low. Some countries have started producing it themselves again and they can produce it at something like 30 cents a day or something which is very, very cheap.
Is drug addiction treatment covered by my health insurance?
I'm not an expert at what's covered by health insurance, but as far as I'm being told, most people who have health insurance will also have a possibility of being put into treatment if they have serious drug problems. Most drug treatments are, in the States, of a duration of 28 days, and that has very much to do with what the policies cover. It hasn't that much to do with how long a time it actually takes, or what would be optimal with regard to the treatment of the addiction.
Why is methadone a controversial treatment?
From the very start, methadone was quite controversial. Probably because it was oversold as a cure and later on it was discovered that many people will only benefit from it, to some degree, and it is more care than cure, really. It was controversial because many people conceived of methadone as state delivered narcotics. It did not cure the addiction and with the expectancy of getting out of the addiction, it was seen as making the addiction permanent again. It did not see people not breaking with their families, not keeping up a job, not going to prison, and not partaking in risky drug related behavior, was a very very good benefit. People wanted the addicts off drugs and they saw it as not happening when people got methadone and therefore they did not like it.
What alternative drug therapies are available for heroin addiction?
There are several alternatives to treat heroin addiction besides methadone. One of them that has been very successful is treatment with buprenorphine, but there are other drugs as well. The problem is that there is a considerable drop-out rate. Another problem is that people seemingly do not stop using other drugs because they get methadone. A considerable portion of the patients in methadone programs use other drugs to top off—up the effect-- and that's not really very good. And one should think twice sometimes, whether they get the adequate dosage, or whether they get the adequate drug.
How is heroin acquired for scientific studies?
Heroin is usede by a lot of people, it's thought of as something that is strictly illegal and that it can only be bought off street pushers. That's a complete misconception. Heroin could just as well be made by big pharmaceutical companies, and indeed, as far as I know there are five producers who will deliver to any legitimate customer. And there are now some, because we have these heroin trials going on in different countries. They purchase their heroin from authorized sources--pharmaceutical companies that produce the drug.
