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."