A few years ago, the Arts & Entertainment network (A&E) began airing the show “Intervention,” which documents the stories of alcoholics and drug addicts.  Addicts on the show don’t realizing that they’re family has planned an intervention for them at the end of the interview; they think they’re merely taking part in a documentary about drugs.

At the end of every episode, families come together and with the help of an interventionist, they confront their addicted loved one with letters and an opportunity to go to a treatment facility.

Any regular viewer of the show will tell you that the heroin addicts who have been tracked on the show are some of the saddest cases there are, when it comes to addiction.  Many end up living on the streets and have resorted to using dirty needles and dangerous street drugs to keep up their habit.

Although illegal in the United States, Britain has been prescribing medical heroin to the ten percent of addicts who are untreatable, or who do not respond to traditional methadone therapy.  According to a study conducted by Kings College of London, this approach has had much success (Reuters).

Dr. John Strang, an addiction expert at the college and the lead author of the study, states that the goal of prescribing heroin is to try and get the severely addicted off the street and back into mainstream society.

For the study, 127 addicts were treated at several supervised clinics.  Researchers randomly chose which patients would receive either heroin injections, methadone injections or methadone pills.

Of those who were prescribed heroin, more than 66% had no trace of street heroin in their urine at least half the time while they were being treated.  Prior to the study, they were on heroin every day of their lives. 

Dr. Strang told Reuters, "These sorts of changes are typical of what we are seeing. People are not only physically getting better, but they're getting back into society."  More information on the test results are being published in the British medical journal, The Lancet.