Heroin Clinic Opens In Denmark

Great news from Europe as Denmark finally opens the doors for their heroin assisted treatment (HAT) program. There was rumour of takeaway doses being allowed for the first time but it seems that again, political pressure from the right was too much. Patients diverting their heroin doses has been a concern for all HAT programs worldwide but logic is just too difficult for some when it comes to drugs. The simple truth is that, unlike methadone, patients have no incentive to sell their takeaway dose. Those who sell their methadone or buprenorphine, do so to buy heroin but why would a HAT patient sell their pharmaceutical quality heroin only to buy back street grade drugs? And it’s not like someone can bluff their way into a place on the program who doesn’t really need their daily heroin dose so they can on-sell it. I would dare say that takeaway doses of heroin would be guarded more carefully than the patient’s spouse.

It’s time the Australian government looked into HAT again now that John Howard has been banish to the great halls of shame. Whether Kevin Rudd also has deluded personal views on HAT should now be irrelevant as the verdict is in and two decades of mostly excellent results has shown this program to be highly successful. Even a trial is unnecessary. There is no longer any reasonable unknowns to argue against introducing a HAT program into Australia without sounding like John Howard and Bronwyn Bishop’s spotty faced love child. 

First Free Heroin Clinic Opens In Denmark

AFP

February 2010

COPENHAGEN — After years of contention, Denmark on Monday opened its first clinic equipped to distribute free heroin under medical supervision to people heavily addicted to the drug.

The Scandinavian country joins a number of countries like Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany to allow prescriptions for medicinal heroin, or diamorphine, to be written out to a small group of addicts so hooked on the substance that more traditional substitutes like methadone have no effect.

The clinic is set to serve only 120 of some 300 hard-core heroin addicts, or only about one percent of all drug addicts in the country.

"Our objective is not to cure heroin addicts, but to help those who are not satisfied by methadone by providing them with clean heroin, allowing them to avoid disease and the temptation of criminal acts to obtain the drug," a doctor and head of the clinic Inger Nielsen told AFP.

Only addicts who have been referred from a methadone centre for treatment and who voluntarily request to enter the clinic will be permitted to participate in the programme, Nielsen said.

They will be treated with methadone for the first 14 days "so we can determine how much heroin to prescribe," she added.

The Danish parliament passed a law legalising the distribution of medicinal heroin in 2008, but the opening of the clinic was delayed until the city of Copenhagen agreed to house the programme.

The User Association, a group representing drug addicts, remains critical, blasting that patients are required to go to the clinic twice a day, seven days a week, to receive their doses.

"This means living like a zombie, without being able to hold down a job or study or have hobbies," head of the association Joergen Kjaer told reporters.

Related Articles

ACT Heroin Trial Revived?
Leading Article: An Injection Of Common Sense

Canada Provides the Final Proof Needed for Heroin Assisted Treatment

Germany Passes Prescription Heroin into Law

Heroin Assisted Treatment Winning Approval in Europe

What Does Prescription Heroin Really Mean for Junkies?

Denmark - More Prescription Heroin Programs for Addicts

Prescription Heroin - Lifesaving Medication?

Top UK Cop Calls for Prescription Heroin

How Much Evidence Do We Need?

Israel - Another Country Considers Prescription Heroin

Who Supports a Heroin Trial?

Danes Consider Dutch Style Cannabis Shops

I wondered why it took so long for another country to adopt the Dutch model of cannabis “Coffee Shops”. It seems to work quite well except for the worry about drug tourism but if more countries adopted this idea, this wouldn’t be a problem. The most interesting factor of this Danish proposal is that supply is from legal crops whereas the Dutch model doesn’t stipulate where the retail outlets (coffee shops) source their supplies from. I can’t wait to hear the screams of prohibitionists as their heads implode.

Council May Enter Drug Trade
The Copenhagen Post
September 2009

Decriminialising cannabis is eyed as a means to take the trade away from criminal gangs

City supports draft model to offer small quantities of cannabis to residents at current street prices

A City Council majority is backing a plan to legalise the sale of cannabis, which could see two thirds of the market taken away from criminal gangs, reports Politiken newspaper.

The paper cites a memorandum drawn up by council staff, proposing that state-licensed shops sell the drug in small quantities at 50 kroner per gram – similar to the current street price.

The illegal cannabis trade in Copenhagen is estimated to be worth more than a billion kroner annually and if 40 state-run ‘coffee shops’ were set up, they could turn over about 700 million kroner a year.
The council report states the cannabis would be sourced from legal plantations and suggests a three-year trial period. It also states research shows that decriminalising the drug doesn’t lead to more drug abuse.

‘Drug use is not higher in countries that have already decriminalised hash for personal use,’ said the report.

The Social Democrats, Social Liberals, Socialist People’s Party, Red-Green Alliance plus Liberal councillor Lars Dueholm have secured a majority for the model suggested.

However, the legal pot would only be available to city residents. Thor Buch Grønlykke, spokesman for the Social Democrats, explained that this would prevent ‘hash tourism’.

Grønlykke also insisted the licensed stores would be staffed by healthcare professionals.

‘The hash must be sold from places where people are scrutinised closely so the young and vulnerable people can’t buy the drugs,’ he said.

Recent statistics show that almost 50 percent of Danes between the age of 16 and 44 have tried hash and there are around 7000 addicts nationwide.

The council plans to send its finalised proposal to the Justice Ministry before the end of the year as the plan would require a legislative change.

Heroin Assisted Treatment Winning Approval in Europe

As heroin assisted treatment (HAT) continues to grow in Europe, the issue is starting to be raised again in Australia. Will Kevin Rudd adhere to his statement that Australia needs new ideas and fresh thinking when it comes to drugs and will his response will be evidence based? Or will he follow the worn out and tired, old rhetoric of John Howard and argue it sends the wrong message?

Australia needs new ideas and fresh thinking when it comes to dealing with critical and continuing problems such as drugs and crime.  But our response must be tough, targeted and evidence-based -Kevin Rudd. Then Federal Opposition Leader

When the ACT heroin trials were sunk by Howard about 11 years ago, he had the US pressuring him in their manic drive for Zero Tolerance drug strategies and also very strong personal views echoed by the then influential religious right and MSM. Are these overwhelming factors for Rudd or will he take the advice of experts and prioritise the well being of addicts and the benefits to society? We can only hope that the Rudd government will base these important health decisions on the continuing success overseas and pragmatic, evidence based results.

Dose Of Reality Fuels New Initiatives To Help Addicts
By Gwladys Fouché
The Guardian
February 2009

State-funded heroin is becoming a reality in Denmark, the latest in a small, but growing, number of European countries – including the UK – concerned with improving drug users' quality of life and reducing criminality.

Since 1 January, hundreds of drug addicts in the Nordic country have the right to receive two free doses of heroin a day, paid for by their health system. The offer is only for adult, long-term users for whom substitutes such as methadone and subutex have not worked.

"The aim is to improve their state of health, help them avoid committing crimes and stabilise their lives," explains Dr Anne Mette Doms at the Danish Board of Health, which supervises the project.

"Quitting altogether is not a realistic option for most of these patients. For them, this will be a chronic treatment, as if you were treating a chronic disease."

Addicts will need to attend one of five specialist drug clinics across the country, where they will inject diamorphine – pharmaceutical-grade heroin – under doctors' supervision. The drug will not be available on prescription so as to avoid resale on the street.

Danish authorities are in the process of setting up the clinics, registering the doctors who will work there, and finding out which drug companies they will source the heroin from.

The £7.2m project is expected to be up and running by March. The initiative was adopted by overwhelming consensus in February 2008, after all but one of the parties represented at the Danish parliament voted in favour of the policy – the only one against it was a tiny far-left party that did not oppose the project per se, but the way it was funded.

Among those in favour was the far-right Danish People's Party, a movement not usually known for its progressive views: at the last general election in 2007, it described some Danish Muslims as benefit-scroungers and fifth columnists who threatened Danish democracy.

Some might think this initiative is not surprising in a country with a historical tradition of progressive, social democratic policies. But, just as in the UK, the drug debate has been bruising in Denmark. And unlike in Britain, where heroin is available on the NHS for some cancer patients, heroin as a palliative is completely forbidden in the Nordic country.

"Five years ago I decided I would not participate in yet another debate on drugs," recalls Preben Brandt, the chairman of the Council for Socially Marginalised People and an advocate of the policy.

"It was too emotional, with different groups being very aggressive."

"The counter-argument was always 'you kill people by giving heroin' or 'with this initiative, you are telling people that taking heroin is OK'," he says.

"It is very difficult to have a rational debate when you are arguing against beliefs."

The turning point came when results became available from experiments trialling the policy in other European countries, including Switzerland and the Netherlands.

"The politicians became convinced that it could help those with the most severe drug problems," says Mads Uffe Pedersen, the head of the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research at the University of Aarhus.

"You could not argue against the (positive) findings."

"The debate became more practical," agrees Brandt.

"It was about what policies worked and which ones did not. It was no longer about morality."

Attitudes towards drugs addicts improved too.

"Drug addicts in Denmark are less stigmatised," says Brandt.

"They are no longer perceived as criminals who are a danger to society. They're seen as patients who have a disease they need help with. The new scapegoats in Denmark are the foreigners."

Could a similar initiative be possible in the UK? It's actually happening already, with three schemes taking place in Brighton, Darlington and south London, where long-term heroin users can inject drugs under medical supervision at specialised clinics.

Early results indicate that the scheme has cut crimes and stopped street sales. Crimes committed by the addicts involved in the scheme dropped from about 40 to six a month after six months of treatment, Professor John Strang, the head of the National Addiction Centre at the Maudsley hospital, told the Independent newspaper.

A third of addicts stopped using street heroin and the number of occasions when the rest used it dropped from every day to four or five times a month, on average. It remains to be seen whether UK politicians will expand the policy nationwide, especially if they fear a possible backlash from voters. But if British voters are similar to their European cousins, this would not be an issue. Last November, Swiss voters approved the scheme overwhelmingly, with 68% supporting the plan. And there has been no popular backlash in Denmark, following the adoption of the policy by parliament.

Denmark - More Prescription Heroin Programs for Addicts

Only the other day, I reported that Israel were considering prescription heroin for long term addicts without a trial first. There is now irrefutable evidence that giving clean, legal heroin to some addicts benefits everyone ... except the Zero Tolerance weirdoes of course.

Denmark too has skipped the standard ‘heroin trial’ and instead are running a pilot project. The most interesting aspect is that even the conservative political parties including the Christian right, support the project. I always wonder why Australia is influenced by US drug policy as they have the one of the worst drug problems on this planet yet we ignore Europe that continually find new ways to manage the situation successfully.  

Heroin project funded

A near unanimous parliament agreed on Monday to begin a two-year, DKK 70 million pilot project that will make heroin available by prescription to addicts that social workers determine to be beyond the reach of other detox methods.

The decision marks a change in political attitudes in the 15-year debate over prescription heroin.

The decisive support for the decision came from the prime minister’s Liberal Party after the health minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, aired what was to be a change in the government’s position during the 2007 general election campaign.

Final resistance to the idea of prescription heroin eroded after a National Board of Health report concluded recently that similar programmes in other countries had been successful.

The guidelines of the programme will be established by the end of the year, and starting in 2009 it will become the responsibility of local councils to determine which heroin addicts qualify for prescription heroin and to oversee distribution.

Funding for the pilot project was announced as part of this year’s disbursement of national Social Focus Pool funds - a Social Ministry funding programme that will contribute DKK 3.7 billion over the next three years to scores of social welfare initiatives.

The Social Focus Pool was established in 1991 and individual project funding is evaluated by parliament annually.

-Copenhagen Post