Drug and alcohol review
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Drug and alcohol review · Mar 2009
From illegal poison to legal medicine: a qualitative research in a heroin-prescription trial in Spain.
In recent decades, studies have been made of the possible benefits of treatments using heroin, although qualitative methodologies have not usually been employed. In 2004, in Granada (Spain), a clinical experiment was launched: the Experimental Narcotics Prescription Programme in Andalusia (PEPSA). This project attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of intravenous heroin and orally-administered methadone prescription for long-term socially-excluded opiate addicts for whom other treatments have failed. The research described herein is qualitative and has been carried out within the framework of the aforementioned experiment. The objective was to discover the attitudes, opinions and experiences of patients (and relatives) once they had been included in the program and are receiving heroin in a therapeutic environment. ⋯ The move from 'substance addiction' to chronic 'illness' upon beginning the treatment provides a chance for a population with a long history of rejection and exclusion to become part of society once again.
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This paper outlines the major policy challenges in reducing cannabis-related harm in Australia. The first is uncertainty about the health effects of cannabis, especially in young people. The second is uncertainty about the extent and severity of harms attributed to cannabis prohibition by its critics. ⋯ In the face of such disagreement the formulation of cannabis policy necessitates a political compromise. The compromise that has emerged is a continued prohibition of cannabis production, sale and use, combined with either civil penalties for use in some states and reduced penalties or diversion in others. It concludes with suggestions about what needs to be learned about the health effects of cannabis use and the costs and benefits of cannabis prohibition if we are to develop policies that are more effective in reducing harms caused by cannabis use.
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Drug and alcohol review · Mar 2009
Editorial Historical ArticleTwenty years' research from the National Drug Research Institute.