The North American Opiate Medication Initiative is a clinical trial that will test whether heroin-assisted therapy benefits people suffering from chronic opiate addictions who have not benefited from other treatments.Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and approved by Health Canada, the study is enrolling participants in Vancouver and Montreal.
The NAOMI trial began enrolling in February 2005 in Vancouver and June 2005 in Montreal. These two cities have the largest heroin-addicted populations in Canada.
Opiate addiction is a major public health problem in North America with an estimated 600,000 opiate-dependent persons in the United States and 60,000 to 90,000 in Canada. Untreated opiate addiction can lead to overdose, infectious disease, loss of regular social and economic functioning, and extensive engagement in both drug-related and drug acquisition crime. Research shows that these risks and harms impose major costs on our public health, health care, welfare and criminal justice systems. Regarding overdose, in British Columbia alone, there was one injection drug use-related overdose death per day in 1998, and Canada in total reports approximately 1,000 such deaths per year. Canadian HIV prevalence rates among injection drug users (IDUs) are estimated to be 20- 25% or higher in cities like Vancouver and Montreal, and infection rates in other jurisdictions are rising. Similarly, hepatitis C infection rates among IDU populations in British Columbia and Ontario range from 55% to 88%, and hepatitis B rates range from 25% to 35%.
Due to the Government Legislating heroin into the black market, most users require funds in the realm of $100-$150 per day to support their drug use.
Health improves, crime plummets
Participants in a Swiss study [1] experienced marked improvements in physical health and social indicators (e.g., social functioning, employment, illegal activities, housing). The overall death rate was 3%, a rate comparable to other reported death rates in cohorts of addicts. The proportion of participants with unstable housing fell during the 18 months (43% on admission to 21% at 18 months). The rate of employment doubled from 14% to 32% and the proportion who were debt-free increased from 15% at admission to 34% at 18 months. Arrests and illegal income generation decreased substantially from 69% to 10% and there was a greater than 50% reduction in criminal offences registered by the police over the time of the study
Enrollment Info
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N.A.O.M.I. Site
Further Dutch Studies on Heroin Maintenance programs
