A NECESSARY PRESCRIPTION

Time To Face Realities Over Heroin Use

Slowly we are moving towards a more rational drugs policy. The home
secretary has already signalled the downgrading of cannabis to a
minor, non-arrestable offence, and the approval of its use for
medical purposes draws closer. More importantly, he is now ready to
encourage a return to prescribing heroin, moving the addiction from a
criminal offence to medical help. This is a major step, as a report
released yesterday by the Centre for Reform reinforces. Written by
Francis Wilkinson, a former chief constable, the report suggests the
UK has "the most rampant heroin problem in the western world". The
number using the drug is doubling every four years. Mr Wilkinson
suggests the total number now is 270,000 - a more conservative figure
than some estimates - but still 540 times as large as the 500
registered in the benign prescribing days of the 1960s.

Like our investigatory reporter Nick Davies in a series earlier this
year, Mr Wilkinson notes that the black market creates many of the
problems generated by heroin: the shared needles; the contamination
which occurs when illegal dealers cut the drug with other substances
(sugar, starch, powders, sand) to increase their profits; not to
mention the criminal activities needed to fund a UKP 16,000-a-year
habit. He rightly points to European practice: "the only way to
reduce the problem - it will not eliminate it - is to supply heroin
to users." Ironically, Europe began adopting the old British approach
of prescription as the UK finally abandoned it in the 1990s.

The new leaders are Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany, which
have all adopted prescription, while three more states have official
injection rooms. The home affairs select committee is maintaining
momentum by reviewing the effectiveness of current policy. Even the
deposed drugs tsar has conceded the old goal - a 50% reduction in
hard drug use by 2008 - was unrealistic and should be dropped. Not
before time.