MANCHESTER, England, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- One of Britain's top police officers says that prescribing heroin to addicts would reduce crime and cut social costs.
Howard Roberts, deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire, told an Association of Chief Police Officers' conference in Manchester that supplying addicts through the National Health Service should be part of a plan to get them off drugs eventually, the Independent reported Thursday.
"But I personally do believe we have lived with the terrible consequences of relatively uncontained addiction for far too long," he said.
Britain's main vehicle for treatment of addicts is methadone, a drug similar to heroin. But a few hundred people are getting heroin prescribed as an experiment.
The Netherlands and Switzerland prescribe heroin.
Roberts said the cost of prescribed heroin would be about 12,000 pounds a year -- about $23,000. But he said maintaining a habit on the street costs about 15,000 pounds and addicts typically must steal about 45,000 pounds a year worth of goods to get the money.
