The general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Dr Peter Carter, has said that the NHS should offer heroin to drug addicts and provide injection rooms in order to reduce crime and infection levels.  Carter said that this would wean addicts off the drug.  Despite criticism that this encourages drug addiction, new research from a pilot study apparently shows that this strategy could work.  Three-quarters of the 127 users involved in the pilot reduced their use of street drugs and spending fell from £300 to £50 a week.  The number of crimes committed also reduced from 1,731 (over a 3-month period) to 547 over a six-month period.  Various support was offered to users including psychological therapy and clinic attendance up to twice daily, seven days a week.  In addition to Carter’s support for ‘consumption rooms’ - these already exist in Sydney and Amsterdam where users have stopped injecting in public places such as schools and the stairwells of housing complexes.

Academic Neil McKechnie of Glasgow University states:  ”Prescribing heroin on the basis of reducing crime is risky territory.  It should be on the basis of clinical need…in this case an individual prescribed a medicine to reduce crime.  It is an ethically questionable proposal.  We should be focused on getting users off drugs, not giving them access to additional drugs.  Certainly over the last 10 years of the Labour government we have emphasised harm reduction over abstinence.”