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NHS supplies addicts with 11m of heroin
The Sunday Times Sunday 16 Jul 2000 NHS supplies addicts with £11m of heroin Lois Rogers, Medical Correspondent HEROIN with a street value of more than £11m is being supplied to addicts on the National Health Service in an attempt to cut drug-related crime and reduce the social damage caused by drug abuse. Despite continuing vocal government resistance to legalising the use of cannabis, the number of doctors with Home Office licences to prescribe heroin to addicts has quietly increased. Latest figures show there are 100 doctors across the country who hold the permits. Between 1,000 and 3,000 addicts are now getting NHS heroin, while tens of thousands of other users have to obtain supplies from backstreet dealers. Critics have attacked the scheme for adding to pressure on the NHS, which doctors say is short of funds to provide life-saving cancer drugs, or treatment for debilitating conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. The heroin is supplied daily, in its purified pharmaceutical form as diamorphine, for addicts to inject. Drug policy reformers argue that this is an effective way of stopping addicts stealing to pay for their habit. An estimated £300m of property is stolen annually to pay for black-market heroin, and the cost in police and court time is much higher. Anne Read, a Plymouth psychiatrist who prescribes heroin to up to 30 addicts, said: "I am not a legal drug dealer, this is medical treatment, and it is a way of helping people." A study by her team published at the Royal College of Psychiatrists' annual meeting last week showed a 75% drop in theft among addicts given NHS heroin. Licences for doctors to prescribe heroin were introduced in 1997, but have steadily increased. The system was introduced to control a small number of doctors who were already prescribing the drug. The intention ultimately is to wean addicts off the drug, although Read acknowledges this could take up to 10 years in some cases. Some doctors offer the heroin substitute methadone, for which no Home Office permit is needed, but it has more unpleasant side effects. Moves to hand the treatment of addicts to doctors, rather than the legal system, reflect changes in Europe. Last week Portugal followed Spain and Italy by decriminalising cannabis and heroin, enabling addicts to seek help instead of facing the courts. Doctors in Switzerland and Holland have begun to prescribe heroin, and they point to falls in crime as indicators of the initiative's success. However, Griffith Edwards, emeritus professor of addictive behaviour at the National Addiction Centre, said evidence of the benefits of prescribing heroin was questionable, because the patients had received high levels of other support. Susan Greenfield, professor of neuropharmacology at Oxford, condemned the idea of NHS heroin. "Why should the taxpayer foot the bill for people to go round in a sleepy haze while the rest of us work?" she said. "People with genuine life-threatening conditions cannot get the drugs they need because the NHS funds are not available."
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