CANADA CONSIDERS PRESCRIBING HEROIN TO PREVENT DEATHS

Vancouver, British Columbia - Dismayed by a horrific death toll from drug
overdoses, Vancouver authorities have begun a campaign to break a North
American taboo against supplying heroin to addicts.

So far this year, 224 people in British Columbia - mostly from Vancouver's
skid row - have died of overdoses, up 40 percent from last year.

The deaths, blamed on an influx of cheaper, more potent heroin, prompted
provincial health officer John Millar to recommend that health workers
provide heroIn to certain addicts on a trial basis.

The goal would be to reduce the risk of overdose and to free the addicts
from scavenging for money to buy their next fix.

Such programs have been tried on a limited basis in Western Europe, but
never in North America. Experts believe heroin trials are unlikely to take
place in the United States because of firm opposition among many lawmakers.
Canadian politicians are considered more receptive.

Vancouver's chief coroner has endorsed the plan. The city police chief has
expressed cautious inter est because of the prospects of reducing
addiction-related crime.

The federal health agency Health Canada, says it is willing to authorize
clinical trials in which doctors would prescribe heroin to addicts.

Yesterday, the lawmaker in Parliament who represents Vancouver's worst
skid-row neighbor hood introduced a motion urging the federal government to
begin such trials immediately.

"People are dying in the streets because we have failed to act," said Libby
Davies.

Her district includes the Downtown Eastside, a pocket of rundown rooming
houses, pawn shops and bars a few blocks from Vancouver's posh cruise-ship
pier. Rampant intravenous drug use has saddled the neighborhood with one of
the highest rates of HIV infection in the developed world.

The most ambitious experiment with prescribed heroin has been in
Switzerland, where 1,146 addicts received thrice-daily injections from 1994
to 1996. The program's researchers said crimes committed by those addicts
dropped sharply, and many were able to find jobs and decent housing.

But critics questioned the accuracy of the findings, while others say any
plan condoning drug use sends a bad message to young people.

Among Canadian law enforcement officials, there are sharp divisions over
heroin prescription programs.

"Would we then be suggesting for the cocaine addicts we should give them
cocaine? For alcoholics, should we give them alcohol?" said Inspector
Richard Barszczewski, a drug specialist with the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)