New heroin drug shows promise - Treatment reduces withdrawal, craving

The country’s first experiment with opioid substitution treatment for heroin addicts has produced “modest success”.

The treatment was piloted in 2013 at a rehab centre in Cape Town, and is a strong argument for a wider roll-out‚ psychiatrists said in the June edition of the SA Medical Journal. They studied 135 heroin addicts, who were all snorting or smoking the drug‚ rather than injecting it.

Sixty-eight were offered standard care and 67were also given the drug Suboxone ‚ which eases withdrawal symptoms and reduces cravings‚ for 12 weeks.“Significantly more patients in the opioid substitution treatment group ... completed treatment ‚” the psychiatrists wrote.

However‚ it wasn’t all good news. “Abstinence from illicitopiates was very low‚ as shown by the high proportion of participants [80.6%] testing positive .

”They said this might be because many addicts were abusing dagga and tik‚ “which often leads to impulsive use of heroin during rehabilitation”.