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Health Minister Rona Ambrose is slamming her own department’s decision to provide heroin to certain addicts under a special access program and insisting it won’t be allowed to happen again.

The program is designed to allow patients in exceptional cases to get medications normally not allowed in Canada.

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However, the department has just approved an application that would allow addicts to use heroin — a decision with which Ambrose clearly doesn’t agree.

“This decision is in direct opposition to the government’s anti-drug policy and violates the spirit and intent of the special access program,” she said in a statement.

I am taking immediate action to protect the integrity of the special access program

“I am taking immediate action to protect the integrity of the special access program and ensure this does not happen again.”

There are already safe treatments for heroin addiction, such as methadone, Ambrose argued.

“The special access program was designed to treat unusual cases and medical emergencies; it was not intended as a way to give illicit drugs to drug addicts.”