Heroin for Addicts? Or Send Them to Northern Canada?
06 Dec 2014
How would I react if I were dying of terminal cancer and none of the current painkillers could ease my agony? Or if I were suffering day after day the pain of crippling arthritis and no medication relieved my misery? And then I read that addicts were granted prescription heroin to treat their addiction. I’d be damn annoyed that this painkiller was available for addicts but not for cancer victims and others dying in pain.
Several years ago I wrote that I’d send addicts to chop wood in Northern Canada. That would surely solve their addiction. I thought I’d receive a ton of mail calling me a “Hard-Hearted Hannah”. But the majority of readers were overwhelmingly in favour of this suggestion!
Just how sick are the addicts now being treated in Canada with prescription heroin? Theodore Dalrymple, a British prison doctor and psychiatrist, treated addicts for years. In his book, “Romancing Opiates”, he writes that heroin is not nearly as addictive as is claimed, and that withdrawal is not medically serious.
He has good reason for his remarks. Dalrymple says he has seen addicts laughing in his waiting room. But once inside his consulting room they appear to be in “extremis”. And when taken to task for this sudden change of health, they admit they were “blagging”.
I’ve never treated addicted prisoners but I share Dalrymple’s view. In 1980, during my attempt to legalize heroin for terminal cancer patients, I visited English hospitals and witnessed cancer patients being prescribed huge doses of heroin to ease pain. Specialists told me they could be weaned off heroin in a few weeks if there was a remission of the cancer.
Dalrymple is not a lover of government intervention. He claims the medical bureaucracy established to deal with addicts has been useless and costly.
I agreed with Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health, who refused to allow prescription heroin for a Vancouver addiction clinic. But advocates for the center argued that addicts have constitutional rights to life-saving treatment. The Supreme Court in British Columbia granted an injunction, and now 120 addicted people will be seen two to three times a day to receive heroin. I would suggest that terminal cancer patients dying in agony should have the same rights. But they are denied them.
Is there a solution to the problem of addiction in North America? Singapore has one. When you travel to Singapore, you are handed a card on arrival that states “Death to Drug Traffickers”. It’s a very clear, concise message.
During my visit to Singapore to investigate this matter, authorities delivered another clear message for North Americans. They complained we had become “irresponsibly permissive” about illicit drugs. I could not agree more. Because of permissive laws we spend huge amounts of money on people who self-abuse their bodies, and then expect first class medical care while responsible citizens wait in line for treatment.
In 1984 the use of medical heroin was made legal for terminal cancer patients. But bureaucratic regulations attached to its prescription made it so difficult for doctors to prescribe that little was used, and the pharmaceutical company finally stopped importing it from England. I hope bureaucrats will remember these restrictions if they themselves ever suffer from terminal cancer pain.
Do I have empathy for those who have self-inflicted disease by abusing their bodies with heroin? I would have more if we had unlimited dollars for medical care, but the stark reality is we are running out of health care funds. So until others who are dying in agony and in desperate need of medical care receive it, providing heroin for addicts would be the last obligation on my list.
The problem is not just heroin. Contacts tell me many residents of half-way houses routinely spend government subsidies on crack cocaine. Some become pregnant and deliver children with brain damage. Surely our Charter of Rights and Freedoms should protect these children. Commonsense could prevent many of these tragedies. Until it rules I’d send addicts to chop wood in Northern Canada. What do you think?
