Extending heroin clinics across Britain

THE ARGUMENTS FOR

Free heroin clinics, known as 'shooting galleries', where the drug is given to long-term addicts under supervision, greatly decrease the chance of death due to overdose as patients are treated by trained nurses who follow strict dosage and hygiene standards.

The professional environment helps to deglamorise the addiction.

Addicts receive guidance from counsellors with their rehabilitation programme. When ready, they can move on to a course of methadone, a safe heroin substitute, and eventually get off drugs altogether.

Local communities affected by drug-taking benefit: pilot studies show that the crimes committed by those on these schemes fell by an average of 85 per cent because the addicts no longer needed to commit offences to get money to pay for their habit.

Heroin clinics reduce the multi-million pound drug trade, by taking business and power away from dealers.

THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST

Heroin is illegal for a good reason: it is an extremely dangerous drug that kills hundreds of people every year in Britain. The government should be working to decrease its circulation rather than paying for people to physically abuse themselves in legalised heroin clinics.

Heroin clinics will attract large numbers of addicts to specific areas, giving the neighbourhood a bad image.

The £15,000 it costs to treat each adult addict each year could be used elsewhere within the NHS for more deserving patients.

There is already a free oral methadone treatment plan available for addicts from existing GP surgeries and health clinics. This treatment costs a third of that of heroin clinics and also stops the need for dangerous deep-vein injections.

Heroin clinics divert funds from more effective rehabilitation projects such as help centres where advice and support groups are available but where there is no free heroin. These centres cost less and provide help for a greater number of addicts.