Pubdate: Thu, 23 Nov 2006
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Stewart Tendler, Crime Correspondent
Cited: Association of Chief Police Officers http://www.acpo.police.uk
Cited: DrugScope http://www.drugscope.org.uk
Cited: Action on Addiction http://www.aona.co.uk
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?131 (Heroin Maintenance)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

HARDENED ADDICTS GIVEN FREE HEROIN IN SECRET NHS TRIAL

The Aim Is to Cut Drug-Related Crime

Supporters Say It Is Cost-Effective

Drug addicts are being given injections of heroin on the NHS under a 
government-backed plan to deter them from comitting robbery and theft 
to fund their habit.

Up to 150 addicts at three treatment centres in England will take 
part in the trial, which until now has been kept secret. The centres 
will report the results to ministers, police and doctors.

The addicts have been chosen because they have very serious addiction 
problems. They receive the drug daily under the supervision of nurses 
and doctors. The use of heroin by doctors is not illegal but they 
require licences from the Home Office.

Two clinics are already operating. One is at the Maudsley Hospital, 
South London, and a second is in Darlington, Co Durham. A third is 
expected to open later in a trial that will run for several years.

Heroin has not been routinely prescribed for addicts since the 1960s, 
when the "British system" was abandoned. Doctors were allowed to 
issue prescriptions to addicts but the practice was abandoned after a 
series of scandals in which half a dozen London doctors were overprescribing.

At present addicts are usually prescribed a synthetic substitute 
called methadone, which addicts often say is not strong enough or 
lacks the "rush" of heroin. Prescriptions are sold on the illicit 
market and addicts revert to heroin.

Last month a report by Neil McKeganey, head of drug misuse at Glasgow 
University, showed that fewer than 4 per cent of heroin addicts 
managed to beat their habit with methadone.

Details of the new trial were revealed yesterday as one of the 
country's top police drug-crime experts called for the prescription 
of heroin to be more widely available for addicts.

Howard Roberts, the deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire and 
deputy head of the Association of Chief Police Officers drug group, 
told a national police conference: "We take offenders out of crime 
and treat their addiction in a closely monitored treatment programme. 
Of course people getting people off drugs altogether must be the 
objective but I do believe we have been left with the consequen-ces 
of relatively uncontained addiction for too long."

Mr Roberts, who is a police representative on the Government's 
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said he was not suggesting 
the legalisation of heroin but a way of ending a crime wave that 
ranges from burglary to murder.

He said that up to 60 per cent of crime in the UK could be 
drug-fuelled. He acknowledged that treating addicts with heroin could 
cost UKP 12,000, compared with UKP 3,000 using methadone, but said 
that the sum was outweighed by the cost of crime committed to fund drug use.

Mr Roberts, who has the backing of other senior officers, said that 
the benefits of using heroin were supported by research including 
studies on heroin prescription in the Netherlands and Switzerland. 
The research found that there were significant reductions in illicit 
drug use among those receiving the treatment, and both the Swiss and 
Dutch reported a drop in crime committed by the addicts. In 
Switzerland most of the patients had no criminal convictions while in 
treatment.

Martin Barnes, the chief executive of Drugscope, supported Mr 
Roberts, and said that prescribing heroin could be the best route for 
some drug users to escape their addiction. "There are positive net 
gains not just to the individual drug user but within the community 
generally," he said.

Action on Addiction, a research charity, is helping to oversee the 
pilot scheme. Nicky Metrebian, a researcher for the charity who has 
examined the Swiss and Dutch schemes, said: "There is evidence to 
suggest that there is a potential role for the medicalised 
prescribing of injectable opiates in supervised injecting clinics as 
a last resort for hard-to-treat heroin addicts.

"Action on Addiction's scientific study will test whether this 
treatment is effective in reducing illicit heroin use, improving 
health and reducing criminal activity among a particular group of 
hard-to-treat heroin users." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake