Comments on: Poll: Should Ireland introduce prescription heroin?

By: Learning Curve Inst.

Learning Curve Inst. — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:55:36 +0000

The Learning Curve Institute’s Senior Addiction Lecturer, Liam O’Loughlin, will be speaking on this very subject on RTE Radio 1′s Pat Kenny show tomorrow, Friday March 23rd.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 01:02:45 +0000

It’s an opiate, the likes of LSD have been shown to be hugely beneficial when used medicinally and for the correct condition, obviously administered by a clinician in a suitable setting.

However, whilst I do not know of such a medicinal use for heroin, I absolutely advocate that abusers be given a safe drug and that it be done in a controlled manner, crucially with a view to lowering the dose and eventually quitting.

By: seán martin

seán martin — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:20:00 +0000

Forget about heroin, when are getting marijuana legalised, great craic

By: Dave Harris

Dave Harris — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:18:48 +0000

Oh yeah Sean. You seem to need it in BIGGER letters because you are obviously incapable of understanding.
If your friends mother was so bad, and she was prescribed heroin, she would more than likely not have spent her money on feeding her habit.

By: You Have Been Assimilated

You Have Been Assimilated — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:00:02 +0000

Well said Seamus.

By: Shanti Om

Shanti Om — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:06:43 +0000

People get addicted to heroin everyday for whatever reason. Ideally we should attack the reasons why, but in absence of adequate knowledge we are blind.
In light of this, perhaps this would be a good idea. There would be less chance of kids finding used needles in playgrounds and the criminal aspect would be reduced etc.. It would benefit the addicts too, I know a recovering addict, she told me her life story and I think a move like this would have saved her a lot of hurt and hepatitis..

Ideally, I would like to see Iboga therapy offered in rehabilitation. This plant which grows in Cameroon is used by the Bwiti tribe as a rite of passage into adulthood. It is a potent psychedelic, and the “trip” is said to show you your life from the point of view of the people around you, this is said to advance the addicts’ counselling dramatically, and as a nice little side effect, it interrupts the cravings for up to six months.
Most addicts who have undergone this therapy twice will never touch heroin again. Although, it needs to be administered with supervision from someone who is familiar with the process (there were some issues with the drug trial for the isolate “ibogaine” for this reason).

It would ultimately be far better to help those who want to give up to give up rather than perpetuate the addiction. But if prescribing it and having an injection centre is the best available option, I’d be happy to see it taken.

By: Shanti Om

Shanti Om — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:55:23 +0000

Well said!!

By: Shanti Om

Shanti Om — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:46:00 +0000

From what I have heard methadone is actually more addictive and harmful, and it doesn’t really do the same thing so many of those in methadone programmes end up “topping up” as described above.. That may be one of the reasons methadone programmes have limited success.

By: Sheila Murphy

Sheila Murphy — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:07:35 +0000

Agreed Aydo;

If this poll had run over a week ago, I would have had the same argument against, as per a lot of commentators here – there was a great Tink Tank on the Sun Times last Sunday week detailing the same proposal. It certainly changed my opinion and I think a trial would be an excellent idea.

It reported in that Tink Tank also that an addict would need to have €44,000 annually to support their habit and that 3quarters of crime committed in Dublin (along the line of house breaking / mugging /theft ) is committed to support heroin addiction. IF and only IF a trial proves that those acts didn’t occur if addicts “got their fix” as proposed above then think of the savings, not only financial, that could be made. And think of how safer people would feel walking the streets and in their own homes which to me would be the greatest advantage.

By: Sean Davids

Sean Davids — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:53:04 +0000

If I’m arrogant then I think your a bit innocent to what most of these people are like. Obviously theyre not all complete scumbags but the vast majority are and would rob you without a flicker of guilt. How much interaction do you have with them or are you on the liberal, PC buzz? When my friend was younger her mother would rather spend her money on feeding her habit than feeding her daughter.

By: Talbot OMeara

Talbot OMeara — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:32:58 +0000

Don’t just stop at making heroin available on prescription,
extend the policy to alcohol, and force the medical profession
to medicate instead of making money

By: Dave Harris

Dave Harris — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:02:07 +0000

Good point Los Davos.
There has been not much debate about why people become heroin addicts in the first place.
I think its people who have no hope for the future due to their circumstances. Heroin takes the pain away for a while from desperate lives – people from desperate family situations, those who have been abused, and other horror stories.
More needs to be done to help these people get some hope in their lives.
And one of the major ways is to find a solution to their drug problems.
Prescribing heroin could well be the way to do this

By: Dave Harris

Dave Harris — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:38:14 +0000

ummmm thats what the article is about Gill, instead of just burying your head in the sand and being’against drugs’

By: Dave Harris

Dave Harris — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:33:27 +0000

Sean, do you need it in bigger letters?
The addicts on the street need help. There are always going to be people who need help.
And i suppose you know all about them because you have seen them around. Do you know all of them?
Are you so arrogant that you can judge all of them?

By: Spud Murphy

Spud Murphy — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:42:44 +0000

It’s a pity you don’t know what you’re talking about.

By: Jock O'neill

Jock O'neill — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:42:14 +0000

Ilve next door to a chemist no thank you very much

By: Gill Jones

Gill Jones — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:13:44 +0000

@dave what argument? It’s MHO. One your freely to disagree with. And your right I don’t advocate any illegal drug whatsoever.

By: Gill Jones

Gill Jones — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:10:50 +0000

I don’t have a solution. Do you have a solution Seamus? Will there ever be a solution?

By: Seamus McDermott

Seamus McDermott — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:01:50 +0000

Please cite clinical evidence to support your claim that heroin is devastating.
There is abundant evidence that opiates, heroin among them, are quite safe when administered under medical supervision. They are used every day in hospital on thousands of patients.

Please show is where “fighting heroin” as you put it, has been successful.

By: Seamus McDermott

Seamus McDermott — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:51:12 +0000

Please tell us how your sunny foreign holidays have impacted your life in a negative way.
Have you gotten tuberculosis in Ibiza? Contracted a venereal disease in Thailand? Are you robbing tourists in Temple Bar to finance your journey? Has your marriage been ruined? Do your relatives shudder when they see you? Do you really want to stop but can’t?

I think you’re addicted to making light of other people’s misery, actually.

By: Brian Henoll

Brian Henoll — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:47:52 +0000

@Cpm

Ok, let me put it this way then.

How would you fight heroin? What would you do different than what has already been tried for well over 50 years without success?

Put the addicts under more stress? Push them further into more and more desperate situations?
Its an evil circle we have to break, the current status quo is NOT working and no matter how much money you throw at it never will.

By: Seamus McDermott

Seamus McDermott — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:44:16 +0000

What’s the solution, Gil?

By: Seamus McDermott

Seamus McDermott — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:40:02 +0000

I want you to think about what you would do if your brother or sister became a heroin addict. Do you want them making trips at 3am into dangerous areas to get illegal drugs? What are you going to do, handcuff them to the sink in the bathroom? What is your solution?
It is crystal clear that all the legal remedies we have applied to drug addiction issues have only
1.) Made a lot of criminals very wealthy.
2.) Killed a lot of addicts.
3.) Cost the taxpayer enormous sums.
4.) created a property crime increase to finance illicit drug use.
5.) created additional burdens health services dealing with the use of ILLEGAL drugs (i.e.: dirty needles, sharing, injection-vectored diseases, etc)

If we are going to be honest, we must recognise that drug addiction is not a moral or legal problem. The garda can’t stop it. The army can’t stop it. The prisons can’t stop it. Why? Because is a medical problem.
You can’t use police services to cure cancer or diabetes. The courts can do little to prevent kidney failure. Everyone recognises that. So why do you insist, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, that you can be successful treating drug addicts with legal remedies? Or no remedies at all?

It is time to stop using the wrong tools. They are expensive tools that don’t work. There is no shortage of evidence.

By: Mark Rodgers

Mark Rodgers — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:35:46 +0000

Dispensing pharmaceutically prepared heroin is completely straightforward and at controlled doses is relatively safe. In fact this drug or it’s first cousin was a standard item in the medicine cupboards of middle class homes in the late eighteen hundreds and well into the twentieth century.
With strict registration requirements to prevent drug tourism it would have three outstanding social benefits.
Crime and predominantly gang crime with its massive escalation in gun violence would decline.
Petty crime with burglaries and crimes against the person caused by addicts would be virtually eliminated.
It makes the population of addicts available and amenable to differing treatment approaches.
The forces opposed to such an approach come from a hugely diverse and varying range of philosophies but none of their arguments offer anything resembling the range of advantages listed above.
Yes it does nothing to reduce the number of people addicted or becoming addicted …….but that’s not the issue or is it?
Unfortunately we suffer from another addiction in this country that would prevent something as creative as this being implemented…………..chest beating political correctness……..oh you couldn’t do that ….oh you shouldn’t be doing this!……….just watch the comments.
Oh dear I’m off to the bunker again!

By: Paul Breen

Paul Breen — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:31:16 +0000

Prohibition doesn’t work. It just makes criminal gangs rich.

By: HelloGoogleTracking!

HelloGoogleTracking! — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:52:44 +0000

Ok here goes….my opinion is why not?

Obvious benefits are the removal of criminality, the protection of health, regulation, and supervision by medical staff.
The arguments that it encourages heroin use simply don’t make sense. Quite the opposite, all medical staff would advise against it, and educate anyone silly enough to be considering a lifestyle choice of heroin use.

Next, in a free society, with grown educated adults, everyone should be free to ingest anything they chose regardless of the opinions of others. It should be a fundamental human right. Once a person is fully aware of the consequences, and makes an informed decision, no one else has the right to judge or interfere.

The model of a nanny state controlling the actions of free people, is a contradiction. By all means educate and persuade, but then it is put of your hands.

Would this lead to some individuals making bad choices? Yes!! But that is their right…..once we start legislating for bad choices it is a slippery slope to dictatorship.

Cheers

By: Michael Cuthbert

Michael Cuthbert — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:32:56 +0000

Answered Don’t know. Is the question too narrow? Are there other ways in which users could get pharma-quality class A drugs? Would GPs and pharmacies want the responsibility for prescription and supply?

Sure, decriminalise. Take supply out of the hands of criminals. Remove the motivation for crime and prostitution to get money for the next fix. And international efforts to get growers to produce something else…

By: Stephen Kells

Stephen Kells — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:25:06 +0000

Legalize pot and administer the THC to the addicts to aid with withdrawal symptoms.

By: Ross Bowe

Ross Bowe — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:23:17 +0000

You’ll never stop somebody using heroin of they want to. Making it available in a safe environment at known levels of purity would improve things from both the public’s and the users’ point of view. Users could also be engaged to take part in a rehabilitation programme. Obviously this would need to be done in a way that didn’t discourage the user from coming back due to what they might perceive as ‘nagging’.

By: Stephen Kells

Stephen Kells — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:19:56 +0000

Right on Angelina