Film screening: The case for prescribing heroin

Heroin-assisted treatment is a medical intervention that provides the pharmaceutical-grade drug by prescription to people with long-term opioid dependency who have not responded to traditional treatments, like methadone or abstinence-based programs. Since the first study in Switzerland in the early 1990s, supervised treatment with diacetylmorphine—the chemical name for heroin—has been demonstrated to be cost-effective, reduce illicit drug use and criminal activity, promote the health and well-being of patients, and—in many cases—to lead to abstinence for the small group of patients for whom other forms of treatment are not effective.

This event will screen Anyone for Coffee and Heroin? by Ulrik Holmstrup—a documentary that follows the first year of a heroin-assisted treatment program in Denmark.

After the screening Scott Bernstein, a program officer for the Global Drug Policy Program, will discuss the status of a similar heroin-assisted treatment program in Canada, and the evidence and controversy behind it.

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