“I am reaching out to you, Ministers of Health, regulators of health professions and organizations representing health care practitioners, to ask you to do all you can to help provide people who use drugs with a full spectrum of options for accessing medication, depending on their individual circumstances, that will help them avoid the increased risks from the toxic drug supply. This includes your support for programs that provide greater access to a safer, pharmaceutical-grade alternative to the toxic street supply….For patients who do not respond well to these traditional opioid agonist therapies, prescription injectable hydromorphone and diacetylmorphine (pharmaceutical-grade heroin) have been successful in helping to stabilize and support the health of some patients with opioid use disorder in a clinical context.”
The Honourable Patty Hajdu, P.C., M.P.
“Traditional abstinence-based treatment programs do not work for many people with addictions. Many patients for whom abstinence will not work have had success with drug substitution therapies, including Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT). Importantly, though, these programs also do not work for everyone. As with any medical intervention, there will always be a group of people who do not respond to the treatment. How can we respond to this challenge? The answer is prescription heroin treatment, the logical next step in the continuum of medical care….A decade and a half of studies in Europe and North America have produced a massive body of medical evidence in support of heroin assisted treatment (HAT).”
PivotLegal.org