The heroin trials are the answer to the drug problem. This statement seen by our side, the affirmative team, is most definitely true. We are sure that by taking the next step and trialing heroin with addicts, the answer to the problem may be solved. Heroin trials save lives.
The ?drug problem? can be defined as the harms, and financial and human costs related to death, crime, and health problems. We, the affirmative, see it as the rising cost of drug abuse in the community.
1 in 5 deaths in Australia are drug problem related. In 1998, drug related deaths in Australia were estimated at 22, 500. The financial and human cost of treatment for injecting drug users is also high. This includes the actual dollar costs to the health system, the police, the courts, and the economy, as well as the obvious emotional cost to the family and friends of the victim.
Image from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abu...
Treatment Art Card.
KILLERS ON THE LOOSEEstimates by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre show that the number of overdose deaths in Sydney has risen by more than 130 percent in the past 5 years and an astonishing 200 percent in regional N.S.W.
Kings Cross in Sydney is home to a disproportionate number of overdose deaths caused by heroin. Over half the ambulance calls to Kings Cross are because of overdoses of heroin.
Research has also shown that the need to fund illicit drug use, particularly heroin use, contributes significantly to increasing level of property crime and robbery cost to the community.
Injecting drug users have a higher risk of of contracting blood-borne disease through unhygienic injecting practices. 60 to 70 percent of all injecting drug users are infected with at least one blood-borne disease. Diseases such as HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis A, and Hepatitis C are a major risk factor with...