Heroin is legally prescribed in the United Kingdom.
Wait, stop, whoa. Put the travel plans on hold, IMMEDIATELY!
Now, read on, please. In the UK, heroin in its legal form is known as diamorphine, and is prescribed PRIMARILY for pain relief, and ONLY when other methods have failed, and PREDOMINATELY for patients who are in the end stages of cancer or some other SERIOUS disease which causes IMMENSE PAIN in its final stages.
In other words, people who are very, very close to death from REAL illnesses. People who are or have been in so much pain that something drastic had to be done. People who are NOT EXPECTED to get better, ever.
Heroin is a derivative of morphine, which is a pain reliever. So, doctors in the UK do prescribe heroin, but they take care to distinguish it from “street” heroin by calling it diamorphine.
And, more than likely, the legal heroin is way different that the junk that’s being sold on the street. For one thing, it’s manufactured and produced in a cleaner environment. In other words, it’s NOT dumped out on the nearest flat surface, and mixed with something else, probably by someone who DID NOT bother to wash his or her hands.
And, it is prescribed SPARINGLY. The majority of doctors in the UK do not want to become known as “heroin doctors”, so they take special precautions to make sure that it is really, really needed before they do give it.
So, does this make it right? Should this be done in the US?
Hard to say. But, seeing a loved one suffer in the final throes of cancer (and this blogger has) MIGHT make someone consider it, along with anything else that might help. So, maybe “judge not” would apply here?
Any comments?