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My comment was based on my general knowledge. Most recently by reading the book "Chasing the Scream". Look it up, I forget the author.

But your challenge made me go look, and in about 20 seconds (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=prescribing+heroin+for+addiction+i...) I found: http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/29/4/123 and http://www.recoveryfirst.org/englands-heroin-experiment.html...

This is a process, attitudes are changing, they have not changed.

Interestingly I have never heard of suboxone. I do not think it is widely used in my community, where methadone is prescribed to addicts.

I no longer have direct connections to addicts (I found that ruinous to my lifestyle) but 15 years ago in my country any body who wanted could go on a methadone maintenance programme and heroin use almost dies out completely.

It did not completely die out as there was a residual interest among users who were not addicts (yet?) so had no need of a methadone habit which is as useless to a drug enthusiast as a nicotine habit, but much less harmful and much less socially acceptable.

These days I have connections to the treatment community which is different and a lot of interesting things are happening (look up ibogaine). I also campaign in the political sphere for drug legalisation as I have seen the harm done by police and judges to those I love.

1 comments

Your original statement was "In the UK they have returned to prescribing heroin to drug addicts".

The counter-statement was that it doesn't appear to have been a recent change in the numbers. That is, doctors in the UK have been able to prescribe heroin since the 1920s, so long as they had special permission from the Home Office. The first link repeats the baseline that has been present for decades. It does not report a change.

If there's no change, then there's no "return". DanBC's comments were to suggest that there hasn't been a recent change in the numbers. I found http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/1859350836.pdf which says that no more than 50 patients received heroin in 2000, and 9 lived in London. In 2011, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-13944209 says that almost 120 addicts in London, over three years, received heroin this way.

While that is an increase, it's hardly enough to be a significant change.

Your second link appears to not be a high-quality source. For one, it cites Wikipedia. For another, its second citation is to a summary of the survey done in 2000; which is the one I mentioned earlier that found fewer than 50 patients receiving heroin. Therefore, it does not indicate any recent change, either to the UK drug laws or change in medical policy.

I therefore concur with DanBC. The UK has not "returned" to prescribing heroin to drug addicts given the information you provided, or the sources that I examined in trying to answer this for myself.