Encouraging to see this level of critical thinking around the opioid/heroin issue. It is sadly lacking, as is the science, in what is referred to as “addiction treatment”. The fact is, for various reasons, some people do better on opioids. To force them to choose between living in pain or risk their lives with street analogues is beyond comprehension. Further, in a world of contamination by fentanyl, to deny opioid-dependent people pharma-quality opioid agonists, is to condemn them to risking their lives daily.

For the dependent, the only legal long-term agonist option is to commit oneself to a daily ritual of social-control and forced sessions of unwanted ‘therapy’ at a methadone programme. And that is, for many, no option at all, which is why risky arrest and death is the more attractive option.

As for the constant adverts and coercion by the justice system to ‘find out what Vivitrol is’…. enough said.