Fact: Heroin Cures Heroin

A recent study on heroin addicts was just published in Canada and it's got some interesting/ridiculous results:

"The study focused on addicts who took heroin for at least five years and had already failed two attempts at treatment. One of those attempts had to involve methadone, which helps manage heroin cravings and blocks the drug’s euphoric effects.

The goal wasn’t necessarily to get study participants to stop using heroin altogether, but to turn their addiction into a manageable fact of life instead of a source of high-risk, illegal and/or anti-social behavior."

Basically, there were 2 study groups - 115 patients who got to shoot up diacetylmorphine (the active ingredient in heroin) and 111 patients who shot up methadone, up 3 times a day, in a controlled clinical environment.

I know heroin is one hell of a drug, but isn't the point of treatment to get you fully, 100% clean so you can lead a healthy, happy life? I'm no drug expert, but isn't heroin 'being a manageable fact of life' a bit of a contradiction.

Anyways, the studies uncovered this: heroin addicts who were given free heroin "did better" than addicts given methadone. Yeah, no shit. It's heroin, the real thing! And what does "did better" mean, in a scientific sense, you ask? The LAT reports:

After one year, 88% of those in the [free heroin] group were still in treatment, compared with 54% in the methadone group. They were also more likely to curb their illegal behavior – including use of illicit drugs – by a margin of 67% to 48%.

Of course they curbed some of their illicit, street behavior because these super helpful doctors were giving heroin out for free like candy on Halloween! I'm convinced the doctors were sampling the goods!

Anyways, addictions and treatment are extremely complicated so I understand it's not that cut and dry, but go read the entire article, it's quite interesting.

via Gawker

PS. I'm too vain to do heroin. Be warned, that link is graphic!