Controversial call for heroin on the NHS in Rochdale

Date published: 08/06/2006

Rochdale MEP Chris Davies has made a highly controversial call for heroin addicts across Rochdale to have access to the drug they crave for use in special NHS clinics. He says that medical prescription of heroin could break the link with criminal drug suppliers, save lives and reduce harm to the rest of society.

A research study in the medical journal The Lancet claims that in Zurich the approach has led to an 82% decline in heroin use over the past ten years.

Doctors in the Swiss city can prescribe addicts with heroin to be injected in clinics up to three times a day.  Researchers believe it has removed all "glamour’ from drug use and given heroin users stability and the opportunity to rethink their lives.

More than 50% of burglaries in Britain are attributed to drug use, and the country has the highest rate of drug-associated deaths in Europe.

Chris Davies says that Britain’s 280,000 problematic drug users should be treated as victims and as patients requiring medical help.

The Liberal Democrat MEP commented: "I’ve long argued that we must break the link between the criminals who make huge sums of money out of supplying drugs and the people upon whom they prey.

"Providing addicts with heroin through the NHS can undermine the criminals, and stops users have to steal, turn to prostitution, or sell drugs themselves in order to pay for their habit."  

Currently the Government has authorised one pilot scheme at the Maudsley Hospital in London where drug users are offered heroin on prescription.

Commenting on Chris Davies MEP's call to make Heroin available on the NHS - Paul Rowen MP said: "We have got to tackle the heroin problem head on and Chris Davies MEP makes some good points, his comments are in keeping with a recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation - that there should be an expansion in the number of doctors who are allowed to prescribe maintenance doses of heroin to users, which would lead to a decline in illegal supply.

"I'm not in favour of making the supply Class A drugs more available and would only support this as part of a medical trial aimed at getting users off hard drugs."