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| A substitute for prison drugs policy? |
| By bbc.co.uk |
| Published: 12/09/2009 |
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One of the government's former drug "tsars" has told me how a battle between two Whitehall departments is undermining efforts to get prisoners off heroin. Mike Trace, who currently heads a charity which runs drug rehab programmes in jails, says that the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health are "fighting each other about who runs treatment in prisons". The result, he says, is that last year a record 20,000 English prisoners were prescribed the addictive heroin substitute methadone instead of being encouraged to use their time inside to get drug-free. "It is madness," he says. Mr Trace claims the reason health ministers agreed to spend £40m on drug services in prisons is "not because they love methadone, it's because they want to take control of prison drug treatment". Methadone can be an effective tool in helping heroin addicts conquer addiction but critics argue that too often drug services use it as an easy option and are not ambitious enough in getting users "clean". In a rehab centre in Burton-upon-Trent recently, I met many former prisoners all telling a similar story - that prison doctors are "doling out" heroin substitutes and making it less likely they will get off drugs. Only now, after their release, have they been able to get help to give up all drugs for good. Read More. |
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