For the past three and half years, ‘Spike’ has come to the Crosstown Clinic at the corner of Hastings and Abbott for his injection of diacetylmorphine, a type of heroin he injects himself with three times a day.
“It’s saved my life,” Spike says.
“The Crosstown Clinic is the best medical care I’ve ever received.”
The Crosstown Clinic has been studying the use of heroin as a treatment for the small population of addicts in the DTES who don’t respond to regular treatments like methadone – and they’re hopeful the new federal government will look more favourably on their work.
In the latest study called SALOME, the clinical team at Crosstown has transitioned many patients in the study from illicit drug use to clinical prescription use.
But in 2013, the former Conservative government launched a court challenge of the treatment plan.
“The prime minister and I do not believe we are serving the best interests of those addicted to drugs and those who need our help the most by giving them the very drugs they are addicted to,” then-Health Minister Rona Ambrose, now interim leader of the federal Conservatives, said at the time.
READ MORE: Feds close heroin access ‘loopholes’
Heroin is still an illegal drug and for the treatment to begin, it required an injunction from the B.C. Supreme Court. In November 2014, Health Canada began offering special exemptions for up to 150 people to take diacetylmorphine.
That process, according to supporters of Crosstown, has been slowed down by red tape. Extensions have been delayed and patients have been forced to switch to other possibly less effective medications. Since the Liberals formed government, the clinical director of the Crosstown Clinic says he is hopeful the future of the program is no longer in jeopardy.
“A government that’s willing to look at evidence” says Dr. Scott MacDonald, “should use this a reasonable treatment approach”
There is a date set for next October at the Supreme Court of Canada to hear the government challenge of the heroin treatment plan. With the new Liberal mandate to provide treatment options for more Canadians, people associated with Crosstown Clinic are optimistic the case will not be going ahead. Meanwhile, the results of the SALOME study are expected to be published in the next couple of months.
Health Canada says there hasn’t been a change in policy since the election of the new government, but according to staff and patients at the clinic, the mood in the past month is vastly different.
“For a long time, it was a crime to manage my pain” says Spike, “now I’m no longer a criminal.”
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