Prestigious study found heroin-assisted treatment produces benefits to individuals and society

A seminal review recently published in the prestigious British Journal of Psychiatry confirms that heroin-assisted treatment, also known as supervised injectable heroin treatment or heroin-maintenance, is an effective treatment for patients who have not responded to standard treatment options such as methadone or residential rehabilitation. Heroin-assisted treatment refers to the supervised administration of pharmaceutical-grade heroin to a small group of particularly difficult-to-treat chronic heroin users.

The review by John Strang and colleagues, titled “Heroin on trial: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials of diamorphine-prescribing as treatment for refractory heroin addiction,” evaluated the findings of six randomized controlled trials on supervised injectable heroin treatment in six different countries (Switzerland, The Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Canada, and England) and FOUND that, across all trials, there was a greater reduction in the use of illicit ‘street’ heroin in patients receiving pharmaceutical heroin compared to the control groups (who generally only received methadone).

The review concluded that, “heroin-prescribing, as a part of highly regulated regimen, is a feasible and effective treatment for a particularly difficult-to-treat group of heroin-dependent patients.”

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