OPEN LETTER TO JACK STRAW ON HEROIN

To Paddy Tipping MP, Vernon Coaker MP:

I was taken completely aback this morning when I read in the Times that Jack Straw wants to give heroin addicts heroin, on the NHS. How about giving alcoholics who cannot stop drinking free vodka!!. 

A recidivist alcoholic offender commits just as much (perhaps more) crime if we take into account domestic violence. I am informed by the parole board that an recidivist alcoholic costs £120,000 (without free vodka) for the State to maintain. The crime they commit is on top of this.

Of course both of these suggestions are a complete nonsense. I am surprised that Jack fell for such a stupid idea. The following are just some of the reasons why it must not be done. 

• To give someone a deadly drug such as this without a therapeutic reason runs directly against the Hippocratic oath and no self respecting doctor would become involved with such a scheme.
• Part of the Governments' rationale for our boys giving up their lives in Afghanistan it to stop the heroin production which has crippled the West.
• It is unlawful under the HRA1998 to cause harm to someone in the interests of another. This cannot be avoided
• This policy runs directly against the new NTA/NHS ethos to move towards Recovery Oriented treatment systems for dependents.
• The addicts in question can be successfully treated to live clean and sober for a fraction of the cost of yearly heroin injections of £15,000
• It would be unlawful to waste taxpayers money on this in the absence of the addicts having been offered abstinence based treatment
• The open ended liability for Doctors to be pursued for medical negligence for administering a potentially lethal drug with horrendous side effects without a therapeutic reason would be enormous. I can't believe Jack has made such a blunder. He needs to backtrack quickly.
• Once it became known that free heroin was available on HM Governments' expense there would be an escalation of addicts using less harmful drugs in order in order to get high at the taxpayers expense.

I would be pleased if you could place a copy of this letter upon Jack Straws' desk. 

Yours sincerely,

Robert Beckett

UK Advocates.

ADDICTION TODAY COMMENT

It has been claimed in justification that the “cost of the genuine stuff is less than the crime committed...”

Ignoring whether or not this is provable, the cost of someone going to rehab or day programme (based on 12 steps which leads to free aftercare) and thus becoming drug-free can vary from £2,000-£6,000 for a one-off stay.  Compare this to £15,000 a year for anything up to 25-30 years for heroin or just over £2,000 a year for methadone multiplied by 25-30 years. And that’s without the cost of psychosocial support to change.

If the cost of heroin (£15,000x25 years=£375,000 per user – multiplied by existing users plus all the users who will jump on the bandwagon of free heroin, plus black-marketeers) is so acceptable, why is the fraction of this cost to achieve freedom from drugs not implemented?

What is the ideology and financial gain behind the thinking of implementing expensive prescriptions which do not get people off drugs?

Comments

[Dee Bennett]

I very much doubt that Jack Straw's colleague Patrici Hewitt would approve of his suggestion for her son!

[Adam Baxter]

I'll leave it up to Jack Straw to respond to Robert's letter and instead restrict myself to the Addiction Today comment.

I'm a Charge Nurse at Brighton RIOTT, one of the injectable opioid treatment centres.

Yes, the cost of rehab is much cheaper, but the comparison is invalid. This treatment is only considered for people who have failed to respond to the existing alternatives. They've been to rehab, usually several times.

There's no bandwagon. It would never be available to more than perhaps 5% of the heroin-addicted population - those with the most entrenched drug problems. Some of our clients have been heroin addicts for more than thirty years.

Swiss studies have shown that people move on from heroin assisted treatment after about two to five years. This is usually to a positive next step, such as, quite possibly, a rehab programme. The work these centres do with their clients over this time prepares them to succeed, whereas previously they have only known failure.

Treatment is only offered (and continued) so long as there are benefits. I expect my clients to show a complete or near-complete cessation in illicit heroin use and a marked reduction in other drug use.

The £15,000 a year figure is the total cost. Psycho-social interventions, building costs, staff wages, everything was carefully accounted for. Future costs for provision of this treatment are expected to be lower than the costs under trial conditions.

The Swiss have also calculated that one franc spent on this treatment provides a net return of two francs. The benefits come mainly from reductions in crime. I really fail to see an argument against this treatment on the grounds of cost.

I'm all for debate to help us find the best and most cost-effective ways to treat the problems of drug addiction, but we have to use the facts as the basis for this, or there is no chance for progress.

We do not work against abstinence goals. We work with people who have failed, over many miserable years, to become abstinent and we work to help them achieve abstinence.

Adam Baxter
Community Charge Nurse
Brighton RIOTT

[Frugal Dougal]

I remember an NTA document on prescribing injectable heroin saying that the percentage of addicts on prescribed injectables who wanted to get off and get their lives back was the same as those who injected illicit heroin - but I can't find it anywhere now.

I used to be in favour of prescribing opiates to addicts but, having read this post and the next one, I'm not sure anymore.

[Dave Mack]

So, Adam you are prepared to wait between 2/5 years to get someone in to rehab? Why, rehabs are available now, There are beds in every unit across Britain available, now? Today? why not chance treatment, rather than a life.

[Peter, Leeds]

I haven't really time to address all of the points in this slightly hysterical letter. I will just say one thing though...vodka virtually is free, you can get the really nasty stuff for about a eight quid a bottle from corner shops, supermarkets and even some post-offices thanks to the governments liberal alcohol policies. Heroin on the other hand requires immersion in a much darker, nastier world. Being freed from the necessity from entering this world can be an important step in recovery.