Letting the Fox in The Hen House

VANCOUVER (AFP) - Despite harsh US protests, a government clinic will doll out free heroin to hard-core addicts after it opens on Wednesday, a stone's throw from the US border.

The clinic in Vancouver will test, for the first in North America, whether prescribing heroin can cut overdoses, HIV (news - web sites) and hepatitis infections, and reduce hard-core junkies' dependence on crime to obtain the drug.

Several European countries have run similar studies, but the clinic's proximity, 37 kilometres (23 miles) to the United States, has made Canada's trial especially controversial.