Vancouver drug users to challenge federal ban on prescribed heroin

A man draws heroin he bought on the street into a syringe at the InSite safe injection clinic in Vancouver, B.C., on May 11, 2011. (Darryl Dyck / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Five Vancouver drug users are launching a legal challenge against a federal ban on prescription heroin.

The federal government announced last month it would prohibit the distribution of diacetylmorphine, a version of heroin used in a special access program for addicts.

Health Canada had previously allowed doctors to prescribe heroin for 20 patients in a trial dubbed the Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness (SALOME), but Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose overturned that decision.

Providence Health Care is also involved in the case, while the Pivot Legal Society will represent the five heroin users.

“Heroin-assisted treatment is for people with chronic relapsing opioid dependence. It is for people, folks who have tried recovery, who have tried detox, who have tried methadone…those treatments have just not worked,” said Dr. Scott McDonald, a physician from the Downtown Eastside’s Crosstown Clinic who has treated SALOME patients. “This is a treatment for an illness, similar to how we manage diabetes, or high blood pressure.”

Prior to striking down the decision to allow addicts to use heroin, Ambrose argued there were already safe treatments for addiction, including methadone.

"The special access program was designed to treat unusual cases and medical emergencies; it was not intended as a way to give illicit drugs to drug addicts,” she said in October.

Pivot intends to argue the new regulations infringe patients’ Charter rights to life, liberty and the security of person, as well as the right to be treated equally under the law.

The plaintiffs are David Murray, Deborah Bartosch, Larry Love, Douglas Lidstrom and Charles English. All have been dependent on opioid drugs for years, according to a statement from Pivot lawyer Scott Bernstein.

They’re asking the court to allow the SALOME program to continue while the constitutional challenge is being considered.

WIth files from The Canadian Press