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Prof defends heroin clinic

19/11/2007

A professor at the centre of a controversial government clinic has defended the use of unadulterated heroin to treat people for their addiction.

Three trial clinics in London, Brighton and Darlington have provoked controversy after spending £2.5 million of taxpayers' money on allowing a third of patients to inject themselves with diamorphine under supervision.

Initial results from the trials, which have a further year to run, suggest the approach is getting results.

Professor John Strang, the director of the National Addiction Centre, part of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said the trials were helping addicts to break away from the street drug culture.

"With this treatment we're looking at having a very secure way of providing the treatment which enables the patient to break out of their addiction and is also very safe to the community," he told the Today programme.

"What we're looking at doing is enabling people both to quit their involvement with crime and to quit their involvement with street heroin use."

Under the terms of the trials, one third of addicts are given oral methadone, one third permitted to inject heroin-substitute methadone under supervision and the remainder allowed to inject themselves with diamorphine.

The project has also attracted criticism for allowing addicts to access treatment 24/7, while at the same time campaigners have asked why funding is available for such projects but not for Alzheimer's drugs deemed too expensive.

"I think those are very reasonable questions and that's what the trial will actually be measuring," Prof Strange responded. "If it does not enable people to break out of that, then we will not have the results we're looking for.

"What we're expecting to see is that people's involvement with street heroin use goes from their full involvement to at least half of them having completely quit their involvement with heroin use.

"The figures we're getting, about 40 per cent have quit their involvement with the street scene completely and of those who continue, which is obviously a disappointment, it goes down from every day to about four days per month."