Heroin

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.

English authorities announced Wednesday that a Blackpool heroin user died of anthrax, making him the first fatality in England from what is apparently a batch of heroin contaminated with anthrax. The bad dope has been blamed for nine deaths in Scotland and one in Germany since the outbreak began in December. The anthrax fatality announcement from the National Health Service (NHS) in Blackpool came just five days after the Health Protection Agency issued a statement warning that a female heroin user in London had been hospitalized with anthrax. The spate of anthrax cases among heroin users is baffling police and health experts, who have yet to actually come up with any heroin samples containing anthrax spores. There is speculation that the heroin could have been contaminated at its likely source in Afghanistan, perhaps from contaminated soils or animal skins, or that it was present in a cutting agent added there or at some other point on its transcontinental trek to northern Europe. The cases in Germany and England have no known link to those in Scotland, leading to fears that tainted dope could be widespread. On the other hand, the numbers infected remain relatively small. Although harm reductionists and drug user advocates have called for measures including public information campaigns among users, swift access to drug treatment, and making prescription heroin more widely available, British health officials continue to do little more than tell users to quit. Dr. Arif Rajpura, director of public health at NHS Blackpool, was singing from the same official hymnal this week. He repeated warnings for users to stop using and advised them to be on the lookout for symptoms of anthrax, including rashes, swelling, severe headaches, and high fevers. "Heroin users are strongly advised to cease taking heroin by any route, if at all possible, and to seek help from their local drug treatment services. This is a very serious infection for drug users and prompt treatment is crucial," he said.

The Czech cabinet Monday approved a Justice Ministry proposal that sets personal use quantity limits for illicit drugs under a penal code revision that decriminalizes drug possession in the Czech Republic. The law and its quantity limits will take effect on January 1. The Czech government had approved the decriminalization law late last year, but failed to set precise quantities covered by it, instead leaving it to police and prosecutors to determine what constituted a “larger than small” amount of drugs. The resulting confusion--and the prosecution of some small-scale marijuana growers as drug traffickers--led the government to adopt more precise criteria. Under the new law, possession of less than the following amounts of illicit drugs will not be a criminal offense: Marijuana 15 grams (or five plants) Hashish 5 grams Magic mushrooms 40 pieces Peyote 5 plants LSD 5 tablets Ecstasy 4 tablets Amphetamine 2 grams Methamphetamine 2 grams Heroin 1.5 grams Coca 5 plants Cocaine 1 gram Possession of “larger than a small amount” of marijuana can result in a jail sentence of up to one year. For other illicit drugs, the sentence is two years. Trafficking offenses carry stiffer sentences. Justice Minister Daniela Kovarova said that the ministry had originally proposed decriminalizing the possession of up to two grams of hard drugs, but decided that limits being imposed by courts this year were appropriate. "The government finally decided that it would stick to the current court practice and drafted a table based on these limits," Kovarova said. The Czech Republic now joins Portugal as a European country that has decriminalized drug possession.

Fresh on the success of NAOMI, the North American Opiate Maintenance Initiative, in which hard-core heroin addicts in Vancouver were given either methadone, heroin, or Dilaudid in maintenance doses, Canadian researchers announced earlier this year plans to broaden and deeper their research with SALOME, the Study to Assess Long-term Opiate Maintenance Effectiveness. SALOME was supposed to begin this fall in Vancouver and Montreal, but Quebec provincial authorities have thrown a wrench in the works. The Toronto Star reported this week that Quebec has balked on paying its share of the project, stopping the Montreal portion of SALOME in its tracks. The Vancouver portion, supported by the British Columbia provincial government, is set to move forth. Quebec's refusal to pay its share—the Canadian Institutes of Health Research are kicking in $1 million for the three-year project—led Montreal's SALOME head researcher to charge the government with discrimination. The decision will have "disastrous consequences for people addicted to heroin and (who) don't respond to standard treatment," said Dr. Suzanne Brissette, chief of addiction medicine at Saint-Luc hospital. "There is no other treatment for these people." NAOMI showed that heroin maintenance worked for people for whom methadone and other forms of treatment had not, she said. Had researchers found a treatment for cancer or diabetes, Quebec would not hesitate to help fund it, she added. "It's a clear case of discrimination," she said. "We have a treatment that works and they're saying, `Sorry folks, you won't get it.'" NAOMI researchers estimate that Canada has between 60,000 and 90,000 heroin addicts. The NAOMI trials found that addicts on maintenance heroin used less illicit heroin, committed fewer crimes, and adapted healthier life-styles.

Another video from the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, this time in partnership with the Swedish Drug Users Union. Sweden's government is one of the world's most prohibitionist, but nevertheless has moved toward harm reduction in recent years by expanding needle exchange into a national policy. Previously needle exchange was happening only in two cities in the nation's south. Well, there's still no needle exchange in Stockholm, according to HCLU, it's even hard to get into a methadone maintenance program, and those who do often face negative attitudes from the program's staff. Check out the video below, or here.