Da: “International Daily News” di sabato 5 gennaio 1980 – Roma.
Despite much debate and demagogic statement-making by politicans and so-called experts, the heroin problem in Italy shows no signs of getting better. The only thing, perhaps, is that everyone is getting used to somebody dying of an overdose every day, and to seeing used syringes littering the streets.
Recent mind-boggling events have included the hospitalization of three addicts only twelve years old in a Rome hospital (which means they must have started shooting heroin when they were eleven or less), and various cases of hospitalized addicts buying and selling heroin in the hospital, and robbing other patients to get money.
No one seems to have any idea of how to cure, or check this social illness, but one interesting initiative has been taken in Rome. Villa Maraini is a large, rather neglected old country house. It sits in the middle of thickly wooded parkland belonging to the Red Cross.
Only a part of the ground floor is used, and on the upper floors there are more windows without than with glass. For the past three years, this house has been the headquarters of a drug-assistance project which is known by the same name as the house.
It is in some ways similar to the “half-way houses” created in the States a few years ago, but not altogether, since many of the “members” continue to take drugs while they participate in Villa MarainiÕs activities and “semi-therapies.” Massimo Barra is the doctor who has run Villa Maraini since its birth, and he explains how it works. “First of all, there is no way of forcing a person to stop taking heroin if they themselves do not want to stop. Secondly, the problem is not the physical addiction, but the psychological, existential dependence of the addict on the drug.”
Barra has theorized a long term cycle that most drug addicts go through: “In the first period, the drug user is madly in love with heroin, and in this stage the only thing that can be done is to help him or her avoid the irreparable. By this I mean death by overdose, illness like hepatitis, or going to jail. The second stage is a kind of love-hate relationship, in which there is both physical and psychological dependence.
The addict realizes this, but is incapable of breaking his bond with the drug. The third stage is when the addict, often having touched the bottom in various ways, begins to hate heroin.” Villa Maraini is designed to help the addict at any point along this cycle. Mainly, as a place to pass the time, to work or to talk with other people with the same problem. “For an addict,” explains Barra, “heroin is the only purpose in life.
It, and the ways of obtaining money to buy it are virtually the only things of any importance in the addictÕs day. Therefore, if someone who has been using heroin for, say, two years stops, which in itself is not difficult, they find themselves with a completely empty life before them.
Then they get up in the morning and have no alternative but to go and hang out in the “piazza” or at their favorite bar. Which is the same place that their friends who are still shooting heroin hang out. And an immediate relapse is almost inevitable. “Villa Maraini is an alternative to the “piazza” and the bar.
The kids who come here are encouraged to participate in the running of the center and to spend their time doing the work they like doing best.” Villa Maraini has none of the characterics of a clinic or hospital. The “patients” have to cook if they want to eat, and to clean the place if they do not want it to get dirty.
They work on the maintenance of the house and have undertaken several projects such as the construction of a ping-pong table. There is, however, a small surgery where Barra and other doctors who work part time at the project can examine and treat addicts.
Treatment is limited to acupuncture, which has been found effective in relieving withdrawal symptoms, and the use of tranquillizers. “In the bad cases, when methadone is needed, we send the addict to one of the hospitals authorized to distribute it. But methadone is only a stop-gap measure and does not help in reducing heroin dependence, except in so far as it keeps, hopefully, the addict away from the heroin street market.”
Among other things, Villa MarainiÕs surgery has a drug called “NARCAN.” This is an antidote to heroin which if injected into someone who has taken an overdose can save his life; oddly it is almost impossible to find in ltaly, despite the fact that it can save lives.
“If NARCAN is injected into a drug user who has taken a heavy overdose but is still alive, the chances are that it will counteract the effects of the heroin immediately.” There are problems, however. One of the people who has been at Villa Maraini since the beginning, Giuliano Canellani, explains: “There is no point talking about the work that we do here if there is no money.
Over there is the room for working leather, but there are no knife blades for cutting it. The two upper floors are unusable, and sooner or later might collapse” “At the moment”, says Barra, “Villa Maraini is supported by the Red Cross.
The city has allotted us twelwe million lire, but we have been waiting a year to actually get hold of this money. And consider also that here money goes a long way, while keeping an addict in hospital costs eighty thousand a day. Apart from which, a hospital is not where an addict should be anyway.
He should not have to adapt to a hospital environment but should be able to create his own environment. Hospitals are for people who are really sick or physically injured.”