LEGAL HEROIN

THE Rev Peter Green has called on the Government "to consider legalising
heroin" (report, 15 April).

Heroin has never been illegal in the UK. It is used regularly in the
treatment of terminal pain. The 1967 Act and accompanying regulations did
not make the prescribing of heroin for addicts illegal, but restricted such
prescribing to those doctors with a licence from the Secretary of State. It
was the reduction of heroin prescribing, on the advice of certain doctors
at the Department of Health, which led to the present situation.

Where doctors have reverted to the Rolleston principles, which governed
British heroin policy from the 1920s until the late 1960s, and have
prescribed heroin, the crime rate, the incidence of HIV infection and in
some cases the rate of new addicts have declined significantly. By
contrast, the policy of prohibition has, as some of us warned 30 years ago,
led to the escalation of the criminal market. In spite of earlier warnings,
Britain has followed American policies in this area where they have most
conspicuously failed.

Heroin is a safe drug when administered in clean conditions. Having worked
with heroin addicts for 35 years, I have never known anyone die from heroin
as such. I have known hundreds who have died from the adulterated material,
the impurities, and the social conditions in which the illicit material is
taken. The case for bringing heroin back within the framework of what we
were once proud to call the "British system" is a strong one.

Apart from an information pack produced by the Board for Social
Responsibility in 1986, the last publication on drugs from an official
Church of England source was my own booklet The Drug Subculture: a
Christian Analysis, in 1969, which warned of the dangers of abandoning
heroin prescribing. Scrutiny of the General Synod index of papers for the
period from 1975 onwards yields no reference to drugs at all. In the
absence of any official view, Fr Green's view is therefore one Anglican
viewpoint which hopefully will contribute to a long-overdue debate.

The Rev KENNETH LEECH
St Botolph's Church