Word: heroine
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...Treating heroin addicts by giving them heroin might seem counterintuitive. But for some of the most hardened addicts, administering heroin in supervised clinics may just do the trick where detox and methadone have failed...
...Following the lead of Switzerland and a handful of other countries, Britain recently concluded a four-year trial in which longtime addicts were given daily heroin injections as part of a treatment program to eventually wean them off the drug. Now, with results showing the trial succeeded in reducing street-drug use and crime among participants, Britain could soon become only the second country in Europe to institutionalize the program. That would mean permanent, state-funded heroin clinics would be set up across the country to treat the most heavily addicted people. (See pictures of the dark path of drugs...
...trial, which was conducted in the cities of London, Darlington and Brighton, researchers divided the 127 participants into three groups, giving one group heroin and giving the other two intravenous methadone and oral methadone. Although all three groups showed improved physical and mental health thanks to the counseling and social services offered by the clinics, the heroin-using group fared much better than the others. After half a year, three-quarters had largely stopped taking street heroin. And the number of crimes committed by those in the group dropped from 1,700 in the 30 days before the program began...
...Sarah, one of the participants, says she had tried countless treatment programs in the past, but nothing had rid her of her 20-year heroin habit. "I was pretty chaotic," she says. "Most of my time was taken up by either looking for money or taking drugs." But by going to the clinic every day to inject heroin, she received help finding housing and battling her depression and had time to become a mentor for inmates being released from jail. Within the first year of the trial, Sarah had reduced her injections from twice a day to once...
Alexander's parents were supportive, and checked him into an addiction treatment center in Eastern Washington. But his fellow patients at the center were battling alcoholism, heroin addiction and other serious substance abuse problems - issues Alexander couldn't relate to. "It wasn't really working for me," he says. He left the center to try a wilderness adventure program in the Utah desert (which didn't help either), until his parents discovered ReSTART, where, for $15,500 (including application, screening and treatment fees), "guests" could spend 45 days cut off from the computer, integrated into a real family's home...