Providing free heroin to addicts participating in research - ethical concerns and the question of voluntariness

Abstract
Providing heroin to people with heroin addiction taking part in medical
trials assessing the effectiveness of the drug as a treatment alternative breaches
ethical research standards, some ethicists maintain. Heroin addicts, they say, are
unable to consent voluntarily to taking part in these trials. Other ethicists disagree.
In our view, both sides of the debate have an inadequate understanding of
‘voluntariness’. In this article we therefore offer a fuller definition of the concept,
one which allows for a more flexible, case-to-case approach in which some heroin
addicts are considered capable of consenting voluntarily, others not. An advantage
of this approach, it is argued, is that it provides a safety net to minimise the risk of
inflicting harm on trial participants.
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Date
2014Author
Henden, Edmund
Bærøe, Kristine