How to reduce drug related crime?

In 1982 a doctor called John Marks was handing out heroin to addicts — free, on the NHS. What happened was that there was a 93% drop in theft and burglary. If it can happen in the Wirral in 1982, why not try something similar today, across the whole of the country? It's worth looking at.

https://health.spectator.co.uk/the-case-for-prescription-heroin/

Portugal also saw huge falls in crime when they decriminalised.

It's the obvious thing to do, but this government hasn't the balls to do it sadly.

A subject absolutely done to death on this forum which will have the same people posting the same comments they have been for the last god knows how many years.

In 1982 a doctor called John Marks was handing out heroin to addicts — free, on the NHS. What happened was that there was a 93% drop in theft and burglary. If it can happen in the Wirral in 1982, why not try something similar today, across the whole of the country? It's worth looking at.

 

https://health.spectator.co.uk/the-case-for-prescription-heroin/

Genuine question, but is this not what we do currently with methadone?

Genuine question, but is this not what we do currently with methadone?

Problem is that many users with a meth scrip need a top up of brown.

Consequently there’s a continuing problem with low level shoplifting, begging and acquisitive crime.

(No I don’t know the answer apart from legalising the stuff)

Genuine question, but is this not what we do currently with methadone?

Methadone is a synthetic opiate manufactured for use as a painkiller and as substitute for heroin in the treatment of heroin addiction. It has similar effects to heroin but doesn't deliver the same degree of buzz or high as heroin.

Maybe its like smoking ecigs instead of the real thing?

Problem is that many users with a meth scrip need a top up of brown.

Consequently there’s a continuing problem with low level shoplifting, begging and acquisitive crime.

(No I don’t know the answer apart from legalising the stuff)

I would never ask you what the answer is, I have no idea myself

Why do people with a meth script need a top up? Again this is a genuine question.

---------- Post added 17-07-2018 at 21:51 ----------

Methadone is a synthetic opiate manufactured for use as a painkiller and as substitute for heroin in the treatment of heroin addiction. It has similar effects to heroin but doesn't deliver the same degree of buzz or high as heroin.

 

Maybe its like smoking ecigs instead of the real thing?

I don't pretend to know the answer to this problem.

I appreciate that heroin is a highly addictive drug.

how to reduce Crime - so whys it just about drugs that most have said ?

simple solution cut the Mps pay packets or get rid of some

Use that money for more Police on streets .

Also CPS basics they need a kick up bum .

So many times Police have caught there Suspects and provided Evidence for CPS to let them off

its not all about drugs, but its crime that the drug dealers live of, so stop the drugs reduce the crime

A few of the things in the article the OP linked didn't ring true about The Wirral.

So I looked up the author:

Johann Eduard Hari (born 21 January 1979) is a Swiss-British writer and journalist.

 

His journalism has been the subject of accusations of plagiarism, due to numerous cases of him including quotes from other sources as if they were said directly to him; something Hari initially denied but later admitted.

 

He was identified as, and later admitted being, the author of pejorative edits (under an anonymous pseudonym) of his critics' Wikipedia pages.

 

Hari's Orwell Prize, awarded to him in 2008, was officially revoked following charges of plagiarism and he was asked to return it.

It turns out the doctor's surgery wasn't even on the Wirral, but in Widnes.

Why do people with a meth script need a top up? Again this is a genuine question.

Because Methadone isn't Heroin??

It's a substitute people can use to wean themselves off Heroin, but it's not as powerful and doesn't give an addict quite everything they crave.

Secondly it's only really of use if the person wants to come off Heroin in the first place, many addicts just aren't ready to stop so giving them Methadone isn't of much use.

A few of the things in the article the OP linked didn't ring true about The Wirral.

 

So I looked up the author:

 

It turns out the doctor's surgery wasn't even on the Wirral, but in Widnes.

So is the story (mostly) true or just total nonsense?

It turns out the doctor's surgery wasn't even on the Wirral, but in Widnes.

Its fairly close.

---------- Post added 18-07-2018 at 10:48 ----------

A few of the things in the article the OP linked didn't ring true about The Wirral.

 

So I looked up the author:

 

A doctor called John Marks?

John Henry Marks (born 30 May 1925, London) was the Chairman of the British Medical Association from 1984 to 1990.

---------- Post added 18-07-2018 at 10:54 ----------

The Swiss, for example, in 1997 reported on a three-year experiment in which they had prescribed heroin to 1,146 addicts in 18 locations. They found: "Individual health and social circumstances improved drastically ... The improvements in physical health which occurred during treatment with heroin proved to be stable over the course of one and a half years and in some cases continued to increase (in physical terms, this relates especially to general and nutritional status and injection- related skin diseases) ... In the psychiatric area, depressive states in particular continued to regress, as well as anxiety states and delusional disorders ... The mortality of untreated patients is markedly higher." They also reported dramatic improvements in the social stability of the addicts, including a steep fall in crime.

There are equally impressive results from similar projects in Holland and Luxembourg and Naples and, also, in Britain. In Liverpool, during the early 1990s, Dr John Marks used a special Home Office licence to prescribe heroin to addicts. Police reported a 96% reduction in acquisitive crime among a group of addict patients. Deaths from locally acquired HIV infection and drug-related overdoses fell to zero. But, under intense pressure from the government, the project was closed down. In its 10 years' work, not one of its patients had died. In the first two years after it was closed, 41 died.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/14/drugsandalcohol.socialsciences