ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2008) — Experts debate whether heroin should be prescribed to addicts who are difficult to treat in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal.
Maintenance treatment with heroin is appropriate for heroin misusers under certain circumstances, argue Jürgen Rehm from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and Benedikt Fischer from the University of Victoria, British Columbia.
They point to trials in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany, which found heroin assisted maintenance treatment feasible and effective for those resistant to treatment. They also found it to be cost effective compared with methadone maintenance treatment.
In the UK, heroin has also been a treatment option for heroin misusers for several decades, but the practice remains controversial.
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