Norway is going to start giving away free heroin to drug addicts.
Norway, which has one of the highest deadly drug overdose rates in Europe, will test prescribing free heroin to the most serious addicts to improve their living conditions, the government said on Friday.
The Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Affairs has been tasked with proposing an experimental project to identify patients likely to benefit from the programme, to examine the implementation method, and to calculate the costs.
“We hope that this will provide a solution that will give… a better quality of life to some addicts who are today out of our reach and whom current programmes do not help enough,” Health Minister Bente Hoie wrote on Facebook.
Norway has one of the highest overdose mortality rates in Europe. 81 deaths per million in 2015.
The earliest these treatments would begin is 2020 according to the health ministry.
