Heroin treatment more cost-effective than methadone

Prescribing heroin instead of methadone is more effective and less costly in treating street drug addiction relapses, a new analysis suggests.

It was a collaboration with UBC, the University of Montreal and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.

"We gave them option of trying methadone or diacetylmorphine [heroin] under medically supervised conditions, and we found people who were getting diacetylmorphine were retained in treatment much, much longer, so they had a much better outcome," said study head Dr. Aslam Anis, director of the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences at St. Pauls Hospital in Vancouver.

Most of the savings in the mathematical model were attributed to how those prescribed heroin stayed in treatment longer and spent less time in relapse than those randomly assigned to receive methadone.

By staying in treatment, health-care costs were lower when the cost of the drugs, counselling and social supports were added up.

"Our model indicated that diacetylmorphine would decrease societal costs, largely by reducing costs associated with crime, and would increase both the duration and quality of life of treatment recipients," the study's authors concluded.

While the clinical trial was based on a years worth of data, the researchers considered different timeframes such as one year, five years and over a lifetime in their analysis.

They estimated the societal cost of $1.14 million over the lifetime of a person receiving methadone, compared with $1.10 million for someone on diacetylmorphine injections.

Methadone is taken orally, usually mixed with juice. It works by blocking opioid receptors in the brain to take away cravings and prevent withdrawal symptoms.

In 2009, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that diacetylmorphine is more cost-effective than methadone among the same group of addicts in Vancouver and Montreal, in terms of staying in treatment or quitting heroin altogether and reducing use of illegal drugs.

Originally posted here:
Heroin treatment more cost-effective than methadone