VANCOUVER (CP) - A program that will hand out free heroin in a bid to stop junkies throwing themselves at the mercy of the streets, desperately selling their bodies or stealing for drugs, will begin recruiting addicts on Thursday.

Under a clinical trial just approved by Health Canada, 158 Vancouver addicts will be given prescriptions for free, pharmaceutical-grade heroin for 12-15 months. Officials are hoping that freed from their daily pursuit of money to buy their next fix, users will find time to make positive changes in their lives.

A second site is being readied for the North American Opiate Medication Initiative in Montreal, expected to open in April, and the project will begin in Toronto shortly after that, said Jim Boothroyd, a spokesman for the initiative in Vancouver, known as NAOMI.

On Wednesday, NAOMI volunteers will paper Vancouver's Downtown Eastside with posters asking for recruits for the study. The area is crawling with pushers and pimps.

More than 4,000 drug addicts live in the slum near NAOMI's clinic.

"We will begin enrolling people Thursday," said Boothroyd. "They have to have been addicted to heroin for at least five years. Once we have a random sample, there will be about a month's hiatus before we actually start prescribing."

That means the free drugs will be available by mid-March.

But that is too late for some addicts, including Jane, who died recently at the age of 45.

Mark Townsend, a spokesman for the Portland Hotel Society, which finds low-cost housing for people landlords don't want to deal with, highlighted Jane's plight as he said he hopes NAOMI can help other people he works with.

"It would have made (Jane's) life better. She was put out on the street at 13 by parents who sexually abused her. At 45 she was a prostitute so she could buy heroin," he said.

"That was the only thing that helped her survive the days down here and live with all her painful memories.

"She had violent boyfriends and I mean gigantically violent. Being a prostitute was a means of basic survival. It wasn't a sophisticated operation, she was desperate and her body was all she had to sell."

At the very least, NAOMI would have given her a bit of respect, Townsend said.

Police are on board with the project, hoping it will bring a drop in petty crime which is rampant in Vancouver. The rate of car break-ins is among the highest in North America.

Similar programs in Switzerland were able to show a drop in theft. They were quickly developed into pilot and then permanent programs, said Anne Livingston, director of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.

"We've had the privilege of meeting the people who run these heroin prescription programs and spend quite a bit of time asking them questions," she said.

"There is already so much evidence out there supporting this kind of treatment. I will be really disappointed if we don't put it into action in this community on a permanent basis as soon as possible. And then we should look at prescribing cocaine. It's more of a problem in communities across this country than heroin."

The NAOMI project has scientific approval - and $6.4 million - from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, a government agency, and the support of the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto and the University of Montreal.

Very little heroin will be at the Vancouver site, and stringent security measures will be taken.

Part of the project is to attract users to a clinical setting where they can get other help to kick their habits and stabilize their lives.

Maybe methadone?

Methadone sucks. It doesn't even give you a good buzz.

--PunkDavid