Study: Drug Users Like Drugs

If I didn't consider Benedict Carey an excellent science writer, I'd be sure this New York Times article was an Onion parody:

The safest and most effective treatment for hard-core heroin addicts who fail to control their habit using methadone or other treatments may be (heroin), in prescription form...Canadian researchers randomly assigned about half of (226) addicts to receive methadone and the other half to receive daily injections of diacetylmorphine, the active ingredient in heroin...(the study) showed that heroin works better than methadone in this population of users, and patients will be more willing to take it...

Wow, heroin users prefer heroin. And, interestingly, heroin is "effective treatment" when prescribed by a doctor but an illicit drug when taken simply as a choice. Fascinating. That may explain this:

In an editorial with the article, Virginia Berridge of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine concluded, "The rise and fall of methods of treatment in this controversial area owe their rationale to evidence, but they also often owe more to the politics of the situation."

Posted at Reverse Sickology