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Newsbrief:
Spanish
Government
Okays
Heroin
Maintenance
in
Catalonia
7/25/03
The Spanish Medical Agency
has approved a request from the regional government of Catalonia to begin
a heroin maintenance pilot program, according to wire service reports Wednesday.
A similar program has been in effect in Andalusia for the past year.
The Catalonia program should be up and running by the end of September,
health spokesman Xavier Pomes told reporters.
Aimed at hard-core users
not amenable to methadone or other treatments, the Catalonia program will
try two different approaches. Some 45 subjects will be hospitalized
at the St. Paul and Valley of Hebron hospitals in Barcelona and the Mutual
Hospital in Terrassa for 90 days. One-third will receive heroin,
one-third morphine, and one-third methadone. In the second study,
90 heroin users will come to the hospitals daily for their walk-in drugs.
As in the first study, users will receive either heroin, morphine or methadone.
The intention of the programs
is to "improve the quality of life of the heroin users who have not succeeded
in detoxifying themselves from their addiction," said Pomes, adding that
methadone maintenance programs had a failure rate of about 10%. Those
who will participate in the heroin maintenance studies, said Pomes, "are
a habitually marginal group who have failed to obtain results with methadone
on one or more occasions."
-- END --
|
Issue #297, 7/25/03
Editorial: Follow the Undercurrents |
Bad Neighbor Policy: Learn All About the Drug War in Latin America through DRCNet's New Book Offer |
Historic Medical Marijuana Vote in House -- Support Rises, But Not Yet Enough |
House Defeats Effort to Divert Colombia Military Aid, Barely |
DRCNet in Action: Grassroots Action on Medical Marijuana and Colombia Votes |
DRCNet Interview: Baldomero Cáceres, Advisor to the Confederation of Peruvian Coca Growers |
Unapproved Vancouver Safe Injection Site Gets Unwanted Police Attention |
Newsbrief: The Opium Files -- Afghanistan at a Record Pace This Year |
Newsbrief: The Opium Files -- In Welsh Fields, the Poppies Grew |
Newsbrief: The Opium Files -- Feds Find Plantation in Midst of California Forest |
Newsbrief: This Week's Corrupt Cops Story |
Newsbrief: Wisconsin Weedstock Wins Appeals Court Victory |
Newsbrief: Australian Safe Injection Room a Success, Say Evaluators |
Newsbrief: Spanish Government Okays Heroin Maintenance in Catalonia |
Newsbrief: Dr. Strangelove, Please Call Home -- Connecticut Scientists Compile Marijuana DNA Database to Track Trafficking |
Newsbrief: Michigan Lawmakers Introduce Anti-Methamphetamine Package, Includes Life in Prison for 1,000 Grams |
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