Waiting for a Legal Shot - Heroin Maintenance in Denmark (Sub: ENG, SPA, RUS)

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Denmark is about to start prescribing heroin for those opiate addicts, who did not benefit from any kind of other treatment forms. The HCLU's video advocacy team went to investigate. For more information visit our website at: www.drogriporter.hu/en/legalshot

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Esperando una dosis legal, sustento de usuarios de heroína en Dinamarca.
Dinamarca está a punto de empezar a prescribir heroína a los adictos a los opiáceos, que no se benefician de ningún tipo de formas de tratamiento. El equipo de HCLU de video de promoción fue a investigar. Para obtener más información, visite nuestro sitio web en: www.drogriporter.hu /en/legalshot
Traducción al español de los subtítulos es Espolea.

Heroin addiction has a high relapse rate.

Most people cannot quit or have no desire to quit

for quite some time.

Some people may undergo abstinence-based treatment programs

several times without obtaining permanent success.

Scientific research has proven that these people

can benefit from the prescription of opiate medications

like methadone or buprenorphine.

However, despite opiate replacement therapy

some addicts continue using street heroin

and engage in criminal activity to get their daily doses.

For these people, a prescription of diacetylmorphine,

otherwise known as heroin has proven to be successful

in improving their social and health situation:

reducing the risks of lethal overdoses, HIV and hepatitis infections,

crime, homelessness and unemployment,

which benefits society as a whole.

Recently, Several countries are providing heroin maintenance programs,

like Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Great Britain.

The quality of life of these heroin users improved so much

that many of them chose to undergo

abstinence based treatment after a time.

In February 2008 the Danish parliament decided

to start a heroin prescription program.

the HCLU's video advocacy team went to investigate.

We estimate that we have about 20 thousand heroin users in Denmark

most of them living in Copenhagen

but they are spread out all over the country.

It seems that even though we have a very liberal

treatment policy in Denmark, there is still a minor group

of drug addicts that would benefit from an offer

with the heroin prescription.

In Switzerland, you have seen that there has been

no surplus recruitment of drug abusers because of heroin treatment.

The users benefit from it in that they do not have to

live in this area making a lot of criminality.

They can go out there, they can have their drugs

and they can try to live a more normal life than they are living today.

And for the citizens and the police,

we hope that it will decrease the level of criminality

in addition to drug users.

We have had the discussion about

starting a heroin prescription program

or having a heroin trial in Denmark for 15 years.

It just seemed endless.

It’s been a very tough debate and sometimes

the debate was just going out of the roof.

At one point some other parliamentarians in government

or one of the parties that supported the government

said that I as a Social Democrat was working together

with the mafia and the criminals because

I was speaking about the prescription of heroin

to drug users as part of a treatment.

Last year, a conservative news paper printed this story about Linda.

Linda is 30 years old and she had been using heroin

for more than a decade.

She was selling sex so she could buy her heroin.

Sometimes it got too hard for her and she got enrolled

in methadone programs here but

that was not good enough for her.

She needed heroin but usually she starts using benzos (benzodiazepine)

and she says that methadone plus benzos is a bit like heroin for her

and then she’s back out there because

she cannot get a benzo prescription.

And she’s selling sex again.

And then she found this client, who is a 71 year old guy,

he pays her in benzos.

He gets the prescription from the doctor

and he pays her in benzos for her sexual services.

But he says himself “I’m a necrophiliac and I need you

to take a handful of these tablets before we’re having sex”

and when she is almost unconscious he is having sex with her.

And that story was a real shock.

It was not as much about Linda or that we can make room for her

or she got included in our society.

It was more like this huge monster turning up behind her

and pushes her into the circle

and this is the triggering factor in Denmark

and the reason why we will start heroin prescription next year.

Evidence does not do it.

They put down a working group who should study the results

from Switzerland and Germany and Netherlands

and go through their experiments and see

if there was a positive effect of this treatment effort.

The conclusion was positive and then it was decided

to make heroin treatment for the Danish drug abusers

in some municipalities and not as a trial but as a treatment

offered to those who need it.

All heroin has to be given supervised.

That is to say that nothing will be on take-home doses

everything has to be taken on the spot.

They have to travel once or twice daily to this clinic

and then it will be given in conjunction with methadone

on a take-home basis and then you have to report

the next day in the clinic and have your next dose

or the next two doses in the clinic.

One of the reasons why we are now trying it out in Denmark

and making it as part of a treatment is because more and more people

just normal citizens were saying why don’t you do this?

Intro speech and subtitles by: Arielle Reid

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