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UK: Editorial: A necessary prescription
The Guardian
Wednesday 07 Nov 2001 Time to face realities over heroin use Leader 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 £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.
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