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Put heroin on prescription, says top GP

14/11/2007

A FAMILY doctor is calling for heroin to be handed out on prescription to wipe out its multi-million pound illegal trade.

GP Kailash Chand was moved to look into the problem after four teenage patients at his Ashton practice in Princess Street died of drug overdoses last year.

He says banning drugs has not worked because it fuels crime at all levels.

He says bringing the supply of all drugs under state control would cut burglary and gun crime, take sex workers off the streets and halve the prison population.

Dr Chand, the regional representative of the British Medical Association, also believes regulating the drugs trade could raise billions of pounds tax from producers, which could fund education and treatment programmes.

Drugs workers agree with Dr Chand’s criticism of the current drugs policy. But they say there is no political appetite for a debate on the issue, with the government already under pressure to look again at the recent downgrading of possessing or selling cannabis.

Writing in the influential British Medical Journal, Dr Chand says: "Drugs could easily be regulated in the same manner alcohol and tobacco are regulated and, more importantly, heavily taxed.

"The price could still be substantially less than current prices on the illicit market and the revenue generated from the regulation could then be funnelled into education and other rehabilitation programmes."

Dr Chand’s calls echo similar ones by North Wales police chief Richard Brunstrom, who describes the current laws as ‘unworkable and immoral’.

Writing in response to Dr Chand’s proposals, Joseph Califano, chairman of the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at America’s Columbia University, argues that neither legislation nor decriminalisation is the answer.

Mike Linnell, of Manchester-based drugs support charity Lifeline, said: "You can get controlled drugs from the state free —look at methadone —but you have to mess your life up first."