Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jul 2000
Source: Sunday Times (UK)
Copyright: 2000 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/
Author: Lois Rogers, Medical Correspondent

NHS SUPPLIES ADDICTS WITH UKP 11M OF HEROIN

HEROIN with a street value of more than  UKP 11m is being supplied to 
addictson the National Health Service in an attempt to cut drug-related 
crime and reduce the social damage caused by drug abuse.

Despite continuing vocal government resistance to legalising the use of 
cannabis, the number of doctors with Home Office licences to prescribe 
heroin to addicts has quietly increased. Latest figures show there are 100 
doctors across the country who hold the permits.

Between 1,000 and 3,000 addicts are now getting NHS heroin, while tens of 
thousands of other users have to obtain supplies from backstreet dealers.

Critics have attacked the scheme for adding to pressure on the NHS, which 
doctors say is short of funds to provide life-saving cancer drugs, or 
treatment for debilitating conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

The heroin is supplied daily, in its purified pharmaceutical form as 
diamorphine, for addicts to inject. Drug policy reformers argue that this 
is an effective way of stopping addicts stealing to pay for their habit.

An estimated UKP 300m of property is stolen annually to pay for 
black-market heroin, and the cost in police and court time is much higher.

Anne Read, a Plymouth psychiatrist who prescribes heroin to up to 30 
addicts, said: "I am not a legal drug dealer, this is medical treatment, 
and it is a way of helping people."

A study by her team published at the Royal College of Psychiatrists' annual 
meeting last week showed a 75% drop in theft among addicts given NHS 
heroin. Licences for doctors to prescribe heroin were introduced in 1997, 
but have steadily increased. The system was introduced to control a small 
number of doctors who were already prescribing the drug.

The intention ultimately is to wean addicts off the drug, although Read 
acknowledges this could take up to 10 years in some cases.

Some doctors offer the heroin substitute methadone, for which no Home 
Office permit is needed, but it has more unpleasant side effects.

Moves to hand the treatment of addicts to doctors, rather than the legal 
system, reflect changes in Europe. Last week Portugal followed Spain and 
Italy by decriminalising cannabis and heroin, enabling addicts to seek help 
instead of facing the courts. Doctors in Switzerland and Holland have begun 
to prescribe heroin, and they point to falls in crime as indicators of the 
initiative's success.

However, Griffith Edwards, emeritus professor of addictive behaviour at the 
National Addiction Centre, said evidence of the benefits of prescribing 
heroin was questionable, because the patients had received high levels of 
other support.

Susan Greenfield, professor of neuropharmacology at Oxford, condemned the 
idea of NHS heroin. "Why should the taxpayer foot the bill for people to go 
round in a sleepy haze while the rest of us work?" she said.

"People with genuine life-threatening conditions cannot get the drugs they 
need because the NHS funds are not available."
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