FREE DRUG INJECTION KITS TO HALT SPREAD OF HEPATITIS

Drug addicts are to be handed free sterile injecting kits by the state
under controversial plans to combat a threatened epidemic of potentially
fatal diseases.

An explosion of the hepatitis C virus is likely to claim thousands of lives
over the next decade if nothing is done, experts have warned. It is so
easily transmitted that even snorting cocaine through a shared straw could
cause infection.

Home Office Ministers are now considering changing the law to allow the
distribution of the kits to try to prevent the virus spreading through
shared equipment. They could include tourniquets to help isolate veins and
clean vessels for 'cooking' heroin prior to injection.

Critics fear the scheme will encourage drug use by undermining the message
that it is dangerous.

Experts argue that the spectre of serious hepatitis C outbreaks among
heroin and crack cocaine users outweighs such concerns.

More than half of all injecting drug users are now infected with the virus,
which can cause liver failure. It is expected to claim more lives than drug
overdoses in the next two decades.

The Government's Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs has recommended
lifting the ban on supplying 'drug paraphernalia', including citric acid to
be mixed with heroin and 'cooking' spoons.

The recommendation is still being studied by Ministers but Home Office
sources said they were expected to regard it favourably. 'We will certainly
be looking at this very, very closely,' said one.

The hepatitis C threat will be discussed at a Home Office summit on crack
cocaine to be held later this month.

Although clean needles are regularly given out to prevent infection, it
remains illegal to distribute other drug-taking equipment. This, the
experts say, hampers the battle against hepatitis C.

It is tougher than the HIV virus, and can survive for weeks on spoons or
shared water containers. Occasional dabblers, who think themselves least at
risk, are most likely to share equipment.

Norman Brennan of the Victims of Crime Trust attacked the plan: 'This is
the Home Office saying that we accept that people will be shooting Class A
drugs into their veins. I would like to see a lot more emphasis on prevention.'

However a spokeswoman for the National Treatment Agency, a joint Home
Office and NHS body which treats addicts, said agencies must be free to
reduce the harm of drugs 'safely and appropriately.'

'This is worth looking at, but we need to strike the balance between
potentially encouraging injecting and genuine harm reduction.'

The Lifeline drugs treatment agency in Manchester is preparing to hand out
its own kits from next month. Users who see a nurse will get: disposable
heroin 'cookers', citric acid, sterile water, matches, clean syringes, a
night light and instructions.

The agency is asking the Home Office whether it faces prosecution, and will
then decide whether it is prepared to break the law.

'The drug paraphernalia law is a nonsense,' said a spokesman for Lifeline.

'Until somebody can demonstrate that cooking up in the most unhygienic
situation is not a health risk, then I think giving out cookers is a
sensible thing to do.'

The advisory council's recommendations were backed by a recent Home Affairs
Select Committee report.

A Home Office spokesman said no final decision had been taken. 'We are
studying the report and will publish a full response in due course.'

Hepatitis C was identified in 1989. Reported cases have soared from 241 in
1992 to 5,108 in 2000, piling pressure on liver transplant services.

The British Liver Trust says Britain is dangerously ill-prepared for a
looming crisis, with up to 400,000 Britons already infected - most of them
without realising it.

Sufferers risk passing on the virus through bodily fluids to sexual
partners, unborn children and their doctors.