DRUG rehabilitation workers in Oxfordshire say a call for heroin to be prescribed on the NHS is “morally wrong”.

And they added that the current common rehabilitation system, which provides users with a substitute drug, was a waste of time and money.

General secretary of the Royal College of Nursing Dr Peter Carter recently said providing heroin on the NHS would drive down crime rates and actually help wean addicts off the drug.

He said: “People who are addicted so often resort to crime, to steal to buy the heroin.

“Critics say you are encouraging drug addiction, but the reality is that these people are addicts and they are going to do it anyway.”

But Steve Walker, a former addict and programme director at the Ley Community rehabilitation centre, in Yarnton, near Oxford, disagreed.

He said: “I don’t see it as a solution in any shape or form. People will continue to commit crime, because it will never be enough.”

Chief executive Wendy Dawson has 28 years experience working in rehabilitation. She said: “I think it’s morally wrong to suggest we give people heroin.

“If you give them heroin, what motivation have they got to get off the drug? None.

“It detracts from the whole issue. It would be a drain on the welfare state.

“And it’s a fallacy to think that crime will go down. Addicts will commit crime to get a top-up.”

However, she also criticised prescribing addicts with methadone. She said: “It’s just not helpful to keep someone on methadone. They need a proper pathway of recovery.

“We have had people come in who have been on methadone for five years.

“Their whole life is surrounded by methadone. They have to call into the chemist every day and they can’t enter full-time employment.

“It will not stop the crime and it certainly will not help the addicts. ”

She said the Ley Community offers addicts a very successful intensive 12-month drug-free programme and members are given support with employment and housing.

“It’s about dealing with people’s addiction in a responsible and dignified way.”

Mr Walker beat heroin addiction at the Ley Community more than 30 years ago and has worked with Oxfordshire addicts for the past 29 years.

He said: “They can move forward by offering them total abstinence in a treatment package.

“But the issue is funding. A lot of money is thrown at drugs but not in the right manner.

“Methadone has a big cost in labour and administration. And those on a methadone prescription are never free.

“I think it’s crazy keeping people in the same places, not giving them the treatment they need.”

A spokesman for Oxfordshire Drug and Alcohol Treatment said: “Oxfordshire has a comprehensive drug treatment system which ranks amongst the best in the country.

“There’s a range of treatment for opiate addiction available which include medical treatment, which is often opiate substitution therapy.

“The use of heroin is replaced by methadone and the drug user is then stabilised over a period of time (dependant on the individual). This reduces the need for illegal heroin use and the crime that’s often committed to fund illegal heroin use.

“There’s also a wide range of psycho-social treatment, which includes cognitive behavioural therapy and counselling.

“To reach the rural locations in Oxfordshire there’s a mobile treatment service.”

bwilkinson@oxfordmail.co.uk For more information see ley.co.uk and oxfordshiredaat.org