New heroin treatment study finds long term treatment offers best chance of recovery

The longest study of heroin users in Australia has revealed long term treatment programs offer the greatest chance of success in recovering from heroin addiction.

The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) followed more than 400 heroin users for 11 years between 2001 and 2012.

Professor Shane Darke from NDARC said long term programs are proving to be more effective, compared to short term treatments, in helping heroin addicts on the road to rehabilitation.

"What works, is long term, stable treatment. Either maintenance therapies where people are given substitutes like Methadone or Bruprenorphine or residential rehabilitation or drug free rehabilitation," he said.

"I think it's important to understand that short term treatments like de-toxifying, is actually increasing the risk of death. In fact, we know for a fact it increases the risk of death."

Professor Maree Tesson from NDARC reiterated that there is "no quick fix or a magic bullet to heroin dependence".

"It's a problem that's going to last for quite a long period of time, ten years, a very long period of time," she said.

Decrease in crime among those who seek treatment

The study found a dramatic reduction in crime among those seeking long term treatment.

At the start of the study in 2001, 24 per cent of the group relied on crime as their main source of income. Eleven years later, in 2012 only two per cent were committing crimes to buy drugs.

Garth Popple, executive director of the drug treatment centre We Help Ourselves (WHOS), said that while the people in the study continued to use heroin, they still showed improvements in the rehabilitation process.

"Treatment does work and even though this study still sites people using heroin after 11 years, more than 50 per cent of people have been seeking treatment," he said.

"And guess what? We have got a reduction in crime of more than 50 per cent. We are way out in front."

Professor Darke said many people have a mistaken understanding about the links between crime and heroin use.

"I think sometimes people think that heroin users are just criminals who use heroin but what we do know about heroin is that people commit the crime to get the money to use the drug," he said.

"They don't get any great pleasure out of committing the crime. It's a hard life."

Treating depression is essential for recovery

The report found that 24 per cent of users had experienced a major depression. The report's authors said that without a long term approach to treating depression, many treatment programs will fail.

Professor Tesson said the study was the first of its kinds to ask heroin addicts about their experience of depression.

"For the first time 10 years ago we asked people about the depression they experienced," she said.

"Over 10 years, depression was the strongest influence over whether they did well or didn't do well.

"So that says to me if we were to treat depression as well as the heroin dependency then we have the potential to make even greater changes in people's lives.

WHOS director Garth Popple said the shift in the attitude towards people suffering mental illness has been key in the development of the heroin study.

"In the old days, people were scared by it. We didn't know whether we had the resources to deal with people's mental illnesses.

"Now we see it as a challenge, as long as the client can cope with being in a residential service."

Myth busted: drug users grow out of heroin use

Professor Darke said the report finds no evidence to support the idea popular in the 1990s that drug users simply grow out of their addiction as they get older.

"We've got people dying from overdoses in their 60s. We used to believe that people would mature out when they hit 30 and it's simply not the case," he said.

"Now we have had heroin in Australia since the 1960s, since the Vietnam War. We have had enough time to see what happens in the long term and it's a very sticky drug.

"People will go through cycles of relapse and recovery and it's a long journey."

The report's authors also say the notion that people can be casual heroin users is also a myth.

"One in four people who use heroin just once become dependent on it. Casual heroin users are like the Bunyip - frequently reported but rarely seen," Professor Darke said.

"For every one 'casual' user I can show you 500 heavily dependent users."