By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 20 November 2007
A trial scheme which set up "shooting galleries" in three cities, enabling heroin users to obtain drugs and inject them under supervision, has dramatically cut crime rates and stopped addicts buying their supplies on the streets.
Yesterday's preliminary results from the 2.5m pilot project sent a ripple of excitement through the treatment community, because long-term heroin users are among the hardest addicts to treat. They lead chaotic lives, often robbing and stealing to fund their habits. According to official figures, 10 per cent of drug addicts commit 75 per cent of the acquisitive crimes in the Britain. But the number of offences committed by the heroin addicts taking part in the shooting gallery scheme fell from an average of 40 each per month before they were admitted to "about half a dozen a month" after six months of intensive therapy, according to Professor John Strang, the head of the National Addiction Centre at the Maudsley Hospital, who is leading the study.
Instead of buying street heroin every day, the 150 volunteers are now buying it only four or five times a month on average while a third of them have completely stopped "scoring" the drug on the streets.
Professor Strang said: "This is genuinely exciting news. These are people with a juggernaut-sized heroin problem and I really didn't know whether we could turn it around. We have succeeded with people who looked as if their problem was unturnable, and we have done it in six months."
The scheme is modelled on one in Switzerland, where the introduction of injecting clinics "medicalised" heroin use and transformed it from an act of rebellion to a treatable illness. Similar clinics operate in France, Germany and Canada.
The first British injecting clinic opened in south London two years ago, funded by the Home Office and the Department of Health. Two more were opened, in Darlington last year and in Brighton two months ago. During the trial, a third of the volunteer addicts take the heroin substitute methadone orally, while a third inject it under supervision. The remaining third, observed by nurses, attend twice a day to inject themselves with diamorphine or pure heroin which is imported from Switzerland and provided by the clinic. Professor Strang said: "The rules are incredibly strict. There is no 'take-away' at all [to avoid the users selling their drugs on the streets]. All injections are witnessed at the clinic.
"The approach introduces routine and drudgery by forcing the users to attend for their fix twice a day. The nurses have become quite involved, telling users off about their bad practice or lack of hygiene. I was quite surprised how, after decades of injecting, some users were still so bad at it."
There are an estimated 280,000 users of hard drugs in Britain, most taking heroin and crack cocaine, and about 2,500 deaths a year. The shooting gallery scheme, targeted at long-term heroin users, operates seven days a week, 365 days a year and costs 15,000 per year for each addict three times the cost of providing oral methadone treatment.
Jamie, 39, heroin addict: 'I have got no warrants hanging over my head'
Since the age of 16, Jamie has been to jail 28 times. She has lost her children, her possessions and very nearly her life when she was hospitalised for six weeks in 2004. All because of heroin.
"It started when I was 14. I kept running away from home and got involved with some older kids who were using 'skag'. I wanted to know what it was like. By 16 I was addicted."
Much of her life since then has been spent on the run from police and in treatment programmes, none of which succeeded in weaning her off the drugs.
In 2005 she was one of the first addicts to be taken on by the injecting clinic in south London. It has transformed her life. "I am no longer out shoplifting. I have got no fines or arrest warrants hanging over my head and I am not in prison. I have a better relationship with my family and I feel great."
Now 39, she injects diamorphine every morning and afternoon and wants to start reducing her dose soon. "My plan is to go to college and get a job. Heroin addiction is an illness it has been my illness since I was a teenager."
Just curious,
jack
Jack, I haven't come across anybody who is involved in such a scheme. But it's common sense really. The major problems associated with heroin are caused not by the drug itself, but by the drug laws. I was locked up once, and this police dr came into my cell, just for a chat. He asked me why I did heroin, not condescending or nasty, but genuinely interested. He ended up telling me that of all the drugs out there, if he had to choose one to take himself, it would be heroin, because it passes through your system leaving no trace and causing no damage to your body. Obviously, long term IV users have vein problems, especially if they aren't very good at injecting, but almost all other drugs damage your body in some way.
These places you were talking about, they remove nearly all the problems caused by heroin. If you are getting pure diamorphine, you always know how strong it is, and it has no nasty cuts in it, so reduces the risk of OD, or other types of poisoning. If you are getting your drugs from a clinic, then you don't need drug dealers. So bang goes another very nasty element. Drug dealers have caused me no end of grief in my life. Obviously, if you are getting your drugs from a clinic, you don't need to go out robbing to pay the horrid drug dealers. And I would think that if you have a safe reliable supply of diamorphine, you wouldn't hang out as much with the criminal community, and wouldn't be so much of a social outcast. The fact that you have to go out commiting crime, robbing, selling drugs, getting involved with all sorts of scams to get by, that makes you a social out cast, and you gravitate towards people who are in the same situation as you. And the health side of it - addicts tend to be malnourished, not always very clean, and often have infected injection sites. You see a nurse every day for your hit, then these things are bound to improve. Most of the reason I was malnourished was because if it was a choice between eating and having heroin, then I'd choose heroin, and it never bothered me, cause you don't feel the hunger pangs. And I dunno, I reckon if you go to your clinic and have your hit, then you don't have to go chasing around for drugs all day - may as well clean the house and take a bath, and eat some proper food. I mean what street junkie has time to do stuff like that? You're either gouched out on the sofa, looking for drugs, or too ill to move.
To me, it's blindingly obvious how to deal with the drug problem in this country. But these politicians seem to think that greater punishments for being an addict is the only way to deal with it. I saw a news artical once, some woman drug dealer in Thailand I think, they hanged her, on a great big crane, over the area of the city where she did her dealing, and left her body there to rot. I think that's about as big a punishment as there is. Did it stop people from doing drugs? I doubt it. Addicts dice with death every day. To just keep telling people that they're wrong, to cast them further out of society, if it was going to work then it would working, wouldn't it? Sometimes I think that those people who are in charge are just thick. There's this police chief in Wales, forget his name, but he has come out and said that the current drug laws are unworkable and ineffectual, and the only way to tackle the drug problem is to work towards some level of legalisation. And that's what the cops think, but do you think the politicians listen? Do they phuck!!!
love ya
Diff xx
These places you were talking about, they remove nearly all the problems caused by heroin. If you are getting pure diamorphine, you always know how strong it is, and it has no nasty cuts in it, so reduces the risk of OD, or other types of poisoning. If you are getting your drugs from a clinic, then you don't need drug dealers. So bang goes another very nasty element. Drug dealers have caused me no end of grief in my life. Obviously, if you are getting your drugs from a clinic, you don't need to go out robbing to pay the horrid drug dealers. And I would think that if you have a safe reliable supply of diamorphine, you wouldn't hang out as much with the criminal community, and wouldn't be so much of a social outcast. The fact that you have to go out commiting crime, robbing, selling drugs, getting involved with all sorts of scams to get by, that makes you a social out cast, and you gravitate towards people who are in the same situation as you. And the health side of it - addicts tend to be malnourished, not always very clean, and often have infected injection sites. You see a nurse every day for your hit, then these things are bound to improve. Most of the reason I was malnourished was because if it was a choice between eating and having heroin, then I'd choose heroin, and it never bothered me, cause you don't feel the hunger pangs. And I dunno, I reckon if you go to your clinic and have your hit, then you don't have to go chasing around for drugs all day - may as well clean the house and take a bath, and eat some proper food. I mean what street junkie has time to do stuff like that? You're either gouched out on the sofa, looking for drugs, or too ill to move.
To me, it's blindingly obvious how to deal with the drug problem in this country. But these politicians seem to think that greater punishments for being an addict is the only way to deal with it. I saw a news artical once, some woman drug dealer in Thailand I think, they hanged her, on a great big crane, over the area of the city where she did her dealing, and left her body there to rot. I think that's about as big a punishment as there is. Did it stop people from doing drugs? I doubt it. Addicts dice with death every day. To just keep telling people that they're wrong, to cast them further out of society, if it was going to work then it would working, wouldn't it? Sometimes I think that those people who are in charge are just thick. There's this police chief in Wales, forget his name, but he has come out and said that the current drug laws are unworkable and ineffectual, and the only way to tackle the drug problem is to work towards some level of legalisation. And that's what the cops think, but do you think the politicians listen? Do they phuck!!!
love ya
Diff xx
America desperately needs to enact programs of this sort. The current policies of jailing each and every drug case in the courts, has filled Americas prisons to overflowing. I'm not sure of the numbers but something like 75% of all prison inmates are in for drug related crimes, possession being the highest. I'm sure that the money being paidby tax payers to house these people pales in comparison to the money spent rounding them up. This is clearly not the answer. But somewhere along the way Americas legal system got this phobia of admitting when it's wrong. Which is not helped by the backward attitudes of the so called silent majority & extreme right politicians.
I've always been of the mind that we should educate instead of legislate. I just wish they would all wake up and small the rose's. Real criminals are getting reduced sentences in order to make room for the guy caught smoking a blunt on the street. I really believed that were losing our way here in the states. I've been a republican for most of my life, but I'll be voting democratic next year. I think Hilary will be better for this country than any of the current crop of GOPers.
Thats enough politics it gets me to ramped up
Its probably not perfect, but I think you Brits are a least on the right track
ZEKK
I've always been of the mind that we should educate instead of legislate. I just wish they would all wake up and small the rose's. Real criminals are getting reduced sentences in order to make room for the guy caught smoking a blunt on the street. I really believed that were losing our way here in the states. I've been a republican for most of my life, but I'll be voting democratic next year. I think Hilary will be better for this country than any of the current crop of GOPers.
Thats enough politics it gets me to ramped up
Its probably not perfect, but I think you Brits are a least on the right track
ZEKK
Jack,
I'm not sure where these schemes are although there's been a few articles this week about them in certain newspspers the usual - this is bad - how can we allow this to happen scare mungering sort of stuff although all the stats are good and it makes so much sense. Let's hope it get's refunded and extended and they aren't intimidated by so called public opinion. My man was quite heartened by it mainly because he felt that there is people out there really trying to help.
k
I'm not sure where these schemes are although there's been a few articles this week about them in certain newspspers the usual - this is bad - how can we allow this to happen scare mungering sort of stuff although all the stats are good and it makes so much sense. Let's hope it get's refunded and extended and they aren't intimidated by so called public opinion. My man was quite heartened by it mainly because he felt that there is people out there really trying to help.
k
#Diff,
The police chief in Wales isn't it Barkman or Barmforth or something like that, the one who showed the pictures of the decapitated motorcyclist to deter bike racing, everyone wants him out cuz he's not what they consider PC.
k
The police chief in Wales isn't it Barkman or Barmforth or something like that, the one who showed the pictures of the decapitated motorcyclist to deter bike racing, everyone wants him out cuz he's not what they consider PC.
k
I gota say, that thing with the biker was shocking. I saw an interview with the dead guys dad, when the story first broke. He had kept the fact that he was decapitated from the rest of the family, coz let's face it, they didn't need that image in their heads. And they found out when that police chief showed the footage at a road safety lecture. This guys dad, I felt sick for him, he was so distressed. That was a serious error of judgement.
love
diff x
love
diff x
