Heroin-assisted therapy is a safe and highly effective treatment for people with chronic heroin addiction, according to the final data released by the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI) today.

The three-year randomized controlled clinical trial, lead by Dr. Martin Schechter of UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, included 251 participants at sites in Vancouver and Montreal. Forty-five percent were given oral methadone, 45 percent were given injectable heroin, and 10 percent were given injectable hydromorphone, an opiate licensed for pain relief.

Those treated with heroin had a retention rate of 88 percent, compared to 54 percent for participants who received optimized methadone maintenance therapy.

Sixty-seven percent of those treated with heroin responded to treatment, compared to 47.7 percent of those treated with methadone.

Illicit heroin use declined in all patients, but was declined most sharply among those treated with injectable heroin or hydromorphone.

All participants reduced their involvement in crime and their spending on drugs, and all participants had health improvements, but those in the injectable heroin or hydromorphone group saw the greatest improvements overall.

The study also found that participants receiving hydromorphone did not distinguish it from heroin, and that it appeared as effective in treatment as heroin. However, researchers noted that the study was not designed to test this conclusively.

Given their less-than-enthusiastic reaction to InSite, I wonder how Stephen Harper and the RCMP are going to  react to  these findings?