The Sun Online - News 'Give junkies heroin on NHS'
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'Give junkies heroin on NHS'By MARK PRISSELL November 22, 2006 JUNKIES should be given heroin on the NHS to stop them committing crime, a senior police officer says.
Prescribing the drug would cost £12,000-a-year per addict. But Howard Roberts, deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police, said it would be cheaper as chronic users steal at least £45,000 worth of property a year to feed their habit. He told the Association of Chief Police Officers: "There is an undeniable link between addicted offenders and appalling levels of criminality. "Heroin and crack cocaine addicts commit crime from burglary to robbery, to sometimes murder, to get the money to buy drugs to satisfy their addiction. "The resulting misery to society is huge. “Therefore the logic is clear, I suggest, that we take highly addicted offenders out of committing crime to feed their addiction, into closely supervised treatment programmes that, as part of the programme, can prescribe diamorphine." Mr Roberts stressed the first objective of such schemes would be to get addicts - who currently receive heroin substitute methadone - off drugs. At present, 300 to 400 drug users receive heroin under a joint Home Office and Department of Health pilot project. Similar trials in Holland and Switzerland reported users turning away from crime to feed their habits when they were prescribed drugs. Martin Barnes, chief executive of drugs charity DrugScope, said: “There is compelling evidence that heroin prescribing ... is cost-effective in reducing drug-related crime and other costs to communities.” |
