A FIX FOR THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC

DANI Garavelli is right - a policeman's job is to reduce crime, which
is one of the effects that addicts have on the communities around them
('Quick fix for the heroin epidemic is a counsel of despair', comment,
November 26). Politicians don't really care about addicts - they do
care about crime levels because they can lose an election.

For too long in the UK so called drug treatment has had little to do
with the welfare of the addicts and everything to do with the effects
of addiction on society. Ms Garavelli is also correct when she says
detox programmes are ineffective - on their own they are. In a
nutshell, the addict's real problem is not getting off drugs, it's
staying off. That is the real task of addiction treatment - to give
individuals the necessary tools to stay 'clean'. There does not seem
to be much appreciation of this fact of life here in the UK.

With class A drug use costing UKP15bn a year it is apparent that the
sums spent on drug treatment are relatively small in comparison (say
3% or 4%). Westminster has made claims in the past that each UKP1 spent
on drug treatment produces savings, in terms of the social costs of
drug use, of UKP9.50. This then begs the question as to whether the
spend will ever reach a level where it might produce a real impact.
Say a 300% increase on current spending levels?

Of course this won't work unless the money is spent on effective
treatment - not methadone - but I predict that prescribing heroin will
actually be seen as the 'cheaper option' and will be the next 'magic
bullet' to be touted around.

By the way, until the mid-1960s heroin was available from doctors on
prescription for heroin addicts. The government at the time decided to
panic when the numbers of heroin addicts in the UK went up to around
2,000.

The 'experts' who decided that methadone was the way to go are still
running the show and under their leadership the number of opiate
addicts has increased by a factor of 150 to 200 or so.

John Chamberlain, via e-mail