Effectiveness of community treatments for heroin and crack cocaine addiction in England: a prospective, in-treatment cohort study

The Lancet

John Marsden, Brian Eastwood, Colin Bradbury, Annette Dale-Perera, Michael Farrell, Paul Hammond, Jonathan Knight, Kulvir Randhawa, Craig Wright, for the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System Outcomes Study Group*
Introduction: Illicit drug addiction is characterised by compulsive drug use despite health and social harms. Untreated, this disorder is  persistent and debilitating. In England, illicit opioids (predominantly street heroin; we use “heroin” throughout to include heroin and the very small number of other illicit opioids) and crack cocaine (a colloquial name for the smokeable base form of cocaine) have an aggressive addiction liability and cause most social costs associated with drug misuse. In 2006–07, for every 1000 people aged 15–64 years in England, an estimated  were heroin users and  were crack cocaine users. During 2007–08, 29% of clients who were admitted to a treatment programme for drug use disorders were using both drugs. Results from US and Australian studies assessing treatments for illicit drug use suggest that individuals concurrently using heroin and crack cocaine have worse outcomes than do primary users of either drug.  leia na íntegra