In clinics in London, Darlington and Brighton, hardcore addicts have been given their drugs free on the NHS in return for their commitment and accepting counseling. The BBC reports:
The addict who sticks to the rules avoids the underworld of crime and drug dealers that dominated their lives when they were reliant on street drugs for their daily fix. Jamie too says the state-sponsored heroin saved her life. For the 39-year-old the memory of what life was like before she took part in the trial keeps her on the straight and narrow. "It was horrible, I was miserable, I was self harming all the time. I lost all me belongings, I lost my children because of drugs, my family had enough because of what I was doing. I had put them through the mill and they couldn't cope." She has been to prison 28 times, mainly for theft to feed her habit. But she says she has not committed an offence since she started getting her heroin on the NHS and knows that the trial has turned her life around. "I was like a bag of bones when I come here. So when they brought the clinical trials out... well it saved my life really. I don't know what I would have done without it."
It's not cheap, but with all evidence, all logic, all common sense effectively saying legalise, legalise, legalise it has to be a price worth paying. Shame politicians aren't brave enough to say it too.
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