on the NHS

HEROIN addicts across Cheshire should have access to the drug they crave for use in special NHS clinics. Medical prescription of heroin could break the link with criminal drug suppliers, save lives and reduce harm to the rest of society.

A research study in the medical journal The Lancet claims that in Zurich the approach has led to an 82 per cent decline in heroin use over the past 10 years.

Doctors in the Swiss city can prescribe addicts with heroin to be injected in clinics up to three times a day. Researchers believe it has removed all glamour from drug use and given heroin users stability and the opportunity to rethink their lives.

More than 50 per cent of burglaries in Britain are attributed to drug use and the country has the highest rate of drug-associated deaths in Europe.

Britain's 280,000 problematic drug users should be treated as victims and as patients requiring medical help.

Currently the Government has authorised one pilot scheme at the Maudsley Hospital in London where drug users are offered heroin on prescription.

I've long argued that we must break the link between the criminals who make huge sums of money out of supplying drugs and the people upon whom they prey.

Providing addicts with heroin through the NHS can undermine the criminals and stops users having to steal, turn to prostitution, or sell drugs themselves in order to pay for their habit.

CHRIS DAVIES MEP