Posted on 04/24/2005 9:12:19 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Hundreds more heroin addicts will be able to get the drug free on the National Health Service under a Government programme.
Pilot schemes starting in June will expand the number of long-term addicts given injectable heroin if they fail to respond to other treatments such as methadone.
Ministers have been advised by drug treatment specialists that the introduction of "heroin clinics" in Switzerland and Holland during the 1990s significantly reduced drug-related crime and other social problems.
But members of communities in south London and Manchester, where the pilot schemes will be conducted, are unhappy at the prospect of up to 100 addicts visiting the centres daily to shoot up.
Around 450 heroin users currently receive the Class A drug on prescription.
The Treatment Agency, set up by the Government in 2001 to improve NHS drug treatment services, said if the pilots were successful, recommendations including wider prescribing of the drug to addicts would be extended, leading to hundreds more getting heroin on the NHS.
An agency spokesman said: "The majority of patients on substitution medication get oral methadone. What we are suggesting is that, if that is not working, we may need to look at other forms of treatment. That could be a different dose of methadone. It could be injectable methadone or some may benefit from treatment with injectable heroin.
"There may be an increase in the numbers receiving injectable heroin, but we are talking about hundreds not thousands." As well as the 450 long-term addicts who currently get heroin on the NHS, around 3,000 receive the milder substitute methadone.
There are around 56,000 registered heroin addicts in Britain. The total number of users is thought to be at least four times that figure, according to the charity Drugscope.
If oral methadone treatments do not keep the user's addiction in check, and curb their anti-social behaviour and tendency to steal to feed their habit, methadone injections are tried.
If they, too, fail to keep the user out of crime heroin injections are prescribed along with counselling.
In the 1970s, 20 per cent of heroin addicts who received NHS treatment were given the Class A drug. This has fallen to less than 0.5 per cent.
There are fewer than 100 doctors who hold the special Home Office licence required to prescribe heroin. Of these, there are 20 each in the South-East, London and the North-West but only a handful in other regions.
The pilot projects will be based in clinics at the Maudsley Hospital in Camberwell, south London, and at the Trafford Substance Misuse Service in Sale, Manchester.
The Treatment Agency spokesman said: "There are some concerns in the communities where the pilots will take place.
"The patients are from the areas where the pilots are taking place, and part of the pilots will involve working with the communities to alleviate concerns."
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "Conservatives believe the best way to combat hard drug addiction is residential rehabilitation."
Isnt this sort of the same as our "Methadone" clinics?
Slip 'em an "extra" and no more problem.
The euthanasiaists ought to love this. After all, what "quality of life" do heroin addicts have anyway?
The Republican tax payers will pay for it. They pay for every other left wing "free" hand out. Why not buy their street drugs for them, too? Sheesh!
But...we've got to make absolutely sure no one - I repeat: no one - gets caught with an addictive cigarette in their hand, or there will be HELL to pay!!!!
well hell, I don't get anything free and I'm sick and tired of free stuff for everyone else, so maybe I outta get me some of this....
Imagine the prescription drug nightmare brought to you by our "conservative" President.
When are we going to get the seniors in this country just say no to drugs?
Man, they can hand out "free" "smack"to people who are pretty much the dregs of society.... But they can't provide low-cost teeth cleanings.... And how long on average do people have to wait to have a serious medical condition treated???
Free heroine. Brilliant. It will be like welfare, the next thing you will know, everyone will be on it.
it will be an inconvienience to go get your "shot" once a day, so the leftist brainstormers will soon have home delivery legislated. A nation of lazy, non-funtional addicts. Big brothers ultimate control mechanism.
The Muslims won't be happy with this. What are they going to do with it?
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