Giving addicts free heroin is not the answer

I used to be a drugs worker and believed that the law should take a strong view on use of illegal substances in order to provide incentives for non-users not to start in the first place, and for users to seek treatment. Some colleagues held the opposite view on legalising drugs, but we all agreed on one thing: shooting galleries – which, as you reported last week, Durham Constabulary are planning to provide for addicts – would be extremely problematic.

The issue is accountability. What if someone injects into an artery and bleeds to death – a heightened risk when chronic users can only access veins in areas such as the groin or neck? Who is responsible: the user, the professionals on duty, or the manager in charge?

This hypothetical and unfortunate user will presumably have had to give written consent to access the shooting gallery, saying that he has attended a session informing him of the dangers. But given that he was doing so in order to access a pharmacologically pure version of the drug to which he was addicted, would this stand up in court?

Would a member of the police or drug agency responsible find him or herself on trial for manslaughter? The shooting gallery idea surfaces regularly, and is generally mooted by people who are sufficiently senior to not have to think about how their ideas are going to work on the ground. I hope Durham Constabulary think very carefully about this scheme. Gerry Dorrian, Cambridge

Durham Chief Constable Mike Barton is certainly being honest with his comments but I can’t see how the public will support this at a time when police budgets are being cut. A. Brown, Surrey

Mike Barton is barking up the wrong tree. Crack cocaine, heroin and other narcotics are ravaging our inner cities. By handing out free heroin, he is making the situation far worse. David Courtney, Weston-super-Mare

So Mike Barton thinks it’s a good idea to supply heroin to addicts in a controlled way because that would cut crime. The reasoning is that addicts will no longer commit offences to pay for their fix and dealers will lose customers.

But what is to stop the dealers from recruiting new customers? Surely what is needed for the greater good of the addicts and society at large is to get people off of illegal drugs? Owen Hollifield, Bargoed, South Wales