'Shooting gallery' has saved our lives, say heroin addicts

11:02am Wednesday 17th October 2007

By Barry Nelson

HEROIN addicts say their lives have been transformed by a pioneering North-East treatment trial.

More than a year has passed since the region's first so-called "shooting gallery", where heroin addicts inject drugs on the NHS - was set up in Darlington.

Hailed as a success by NHS officials it has helped 16 difficult- to-manage heroin patients stabilise their lives.

Along with clinics in London and Brighton, the Darlington scheme is the first of its kind in the country.

Tried as a last resort to help heroin addicts who have failed to respond to other forms of treatment, provisional results from the Darlington trial suggest the North-East scheme could become a model for the whole country.

Instead of having to shoplift and break into cars to get money to feed their habit they attend a Darlington clinic for twice-daily injections of pure, NHS-approved diamorphine, or heroin.

Instead of injecting themselves with dirty needles - sometimes using their groins because the veins in their arms are too damaged - they use clean, single-use medical needles.

Apart from reducing crime and keeping people out of prison, it means addicts are no longer having to be admitted to hospital for emergency treatment for deep vein thrombosis and septicaemia, occupational hazards for users of "street heroin".

Jon, 29, from Darlington, who has battled heroin addicition since he was a teenager, said: "I would be dead by now if it wasn't for this trial. Either that or my legs would have been amputated. This trial has turned my life around."

Before the project Jon was selling street heroin to others to pay for his daily fix. But now his life has been transformed.

"It's great now. As a smackhead, I had been running around for ten years. It was like a never- ending cycle. When this scheme came along, it was perfect. I was either going to die or go to prison for years," says Jon, who now spends much of his time with his three young children.

Ian, 28, also from Darlington, has been using street heroin since he was 14. He said: "You get clean heroin here, which means you don't get ill. It has stopped me thieving and it has helped me to cut down on other drugs, like amphetamine or crack."

He added: "This is a great idea. I just hope they keep it going because it will save money in the long run. When you think about it, how much does it cost to keep people in jail or in hospital?"

Ann Hurwood, clinical lead for the project, which operates out of an anonymous clinic five minutes walk from Darlington town centre, said: "It is definitely a success. All of them have either reduced their illicit drug use or stopped altogether.

The scheme is part of a Department of Health and Home Office-funded trial to determine whether England should adopt this Swiss-style approach to managing a hard core of problem heroin addicts.

The project is funded until May next year. Its future after that date is uncertain