"Give addicts heroin" says top cop

[faceless]

Give addicts heroin, says officer

Heroin should be prescribed to drug addicts to tackle crime, the deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire has said at a drugs conference. Howard Roberts told an Association of Chief Police Officers' conference in Manchester the idea should be assessed. He said the treatment would cost ?12,000-a-year per addict but added that drug users steal on average ?45,000-worth of property a year. The idea is being piloted in London, the south east and north of England.

"At the moment across the country we see levels of burglary, robbery and murder being committed by drug-fuelled addicts who are doing so in order to get the money to buy the drugs," Mr Roberts told the drugs conference. "One of the things I have found that as treatment has been highly effective in actually helping to reduce crime, we've seen good levels of falls in drug-related acquisitive crime. However there is still a considerable problem and what I am suggesting is that we need to explore, as part of a treatment programme, the prescribing of heroin to addicts in order to take them out of the illegal market."

The manager of a Nottinghamshire-based support service for families of drug users, supported the police chief's call. "I'm delighted that police are taking drug treatment options more seriously and have been doing so over the last few years," said Nina Dauban, manager of Mansfield-based Hetty's. In the past police have been forced to go down the enforcement and criminal justice route that doesn't always solve the problem. There is a lot of criminality around drugs, reducing the level of criminality is really important in improving treatment for addicts.

"All tribute to him saying this, it's typical of Nottinghamshire Police not to be frightened to speak about their convictions. We're not here to win a popularity contest we're out to improve services for drug users."

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I've always thought this was a great idea to solve a lot of the problems. Most users get into using hard drugs in order to block their perception of their living conditions, in as much as many people will get prescribed drugs such as prozac and valium and I don't see any difference at all in their use.

The major problem with this cop's proposal is, of course, that the moral majority who have been convinced that all drugs are bad, without having any real understanding of the problem, will be up in arms about "giving in to these wasters".

I know of a cop who once brought a large lump of hash into a housing scheme because all the young guys were getting into trouble through drinking because there was a "hash drought" and he knew that it would stop that level of violent crime if they were puffing instead of drinking. This issue is not black and white and the sooner the government acknowledge that the sooner the problem will be lessened. Most heroin users are victims (whether you want to believe it or not!) and if they are given help to make it unnecessary to steal to feed their habits then that will in turn give them less of a feeling of worthlessness - leading to a more controlled environment where they can learn to get over the issues which affected them so badly in the first place.

Providing the drugs officially will also lower the prison population and get rid of the drug baron thugs who control the supply currently. I could go on and on about this issue I reckon, so I'll stop now!

[Skylace]

I agree with what you said Face. It's always reminds me of prohibition here. If it didn't work for alcohol, why would it work for other substances?