The most radical overhaul in drugs policy for 30 years has been put forward in a new report. Nick Morrison asks if this is an admission of defeat in the war against drugs.

TINA Williams knows her son may not get another chance. A heroin user for at least eight years - although it may have been longer as he kept his habit hidden to start with - he is now midway through his second serious attempt to kick the drug habit. And if this fails, the prospects are not good.

"He has used drugs over such a long period that his veins have collapsed. The blood doesn't flow properly and he could lose his limbs," she says.

"The circulation is really bad, his legs swell and his hands swell and they ache constantly. Because he injected in his groin it has affected his legs and feet. He has also damaged his nerves after injecting with a needle.

"He is doing well now but, if he came out and relapsed, I don't think he will recover. He is borderline deep vein thrombosis and this is his last chance."

Tina's son Clifford, 32, has been lucky enough to get into a rehabilitation centre. But with funding for places severely restricted, many users are left to try and battle their addiction with little support. And this puts their health at greater risk, through using dirty needles or heroin mixed with potentially lethal substances.

But a report from an influential committee of MPs published today recommends the creation of "shooting galleries" for heroin users. The injecting rooms will provide a safe environment, where addicts can use drugs without fear of arrest, and get them off the streets.

The proposal is one of a series of measures heralded as, potentially, the most radical shake-up in drugs policy for 30 years. The MPs also recommend downgrading ecstasy to become a class B drug, reducing the maximum sentence for possession from seven years to five, and reducing cannabis to class C, meaning possession will no longer be an arrestable offence.

In its report, the Home Affairs Select Committee says that the traditional approach to the drugs problem through law enforcement has failed, and urges the Government to move towards reducing the harm caused by drugs.

While the Government has already rejected some of the proposals, for Tina Williams the "shooting galleries", while far from ideal, are preferable to the alternative.

Tina, project manager of Parents and Addicts Against Narcotics in the Community (Panic) in Stockton, says any safe injecting rooms should be closely supervised and only used as a last resort.

"I would prefer kids to be off heroin, but this is better than losing limbs or dying. If it is done in a controlled way and it is for people who have tried every other avenue to come off drugs, then it is worth trying.

"A lot of kids are injecting on the streets, and taking it off the streets makes it safer for the user and safer for the community. Otherwise you have got HIV, you have got hepatitis C and you have got death, and that is the reality of heroin addiction."

But "shooting galleries" are likely to prove very unpopular with the public, according to David Mudd, principal lecturer in the School of Health and Social Care at Teesside University, and an expert in addictive behaviour. Although he says there could be benefits in such a move.

"There is a school of thought which says it isn't the drug itself which is harmful, it is the method of use, and this could be classed as part of a harm minimisation strategy. If you are going to inject you might as well do it more safely," he says.

"If you buy drugs on the street it isn't pure, it is cut with something, such as brick dust or talcum powder. And if there is more control over it, the chances are users would have more awareness of what they were injecting."

He says the argument for downgrading cannabis is supported by evidence that it is an effective pain relief, and that it can stimulate the immune system. But he says the position on ecstasy is less clear.

"Some people use cannabis for very different reasons, but with ecstasy it is more of a recreational use, as a hallucinogenic stimulant, and there is more chance of it being mixed with something else. We need to look at each drug individually."

But while MPs are proposing a concentration on reducing the effects of drugs, the Government is persisting with a hard-line approach to heroin. Education Secretary Estelle Morris has decided that a video featuring the corpse of a heroin addict should be made available to all schools.

The explicit video shows the body of Rachel Whitear, 21, who died of an overdose in a bedsit in Devon, but Mr Mudd says there is no reason to believe this tactic will work.

'I believe the 'Just Say No' approach has not worked and it never will work, and there is no evidence to support the notion that shock tactics work. There is evidence that in the past this has resulted in increased drug use through highlighting it," he says.

"It has to be balanced with a well thought-out educational programme, to raise awareness of the whole spectrum of substance use."

This view is backed by David Cliff, co-ordinator of the Darlington and County Durham Drug Action Team.

"Scared people don't learn. If we have learned anything from health education campaigns over the last 20 years it is that you have got to get interest and engagement with the people concerned, and simply showing them images of a dead young woman that they can't relate to is not going to get the message across. It is another ill-informed attempt to try and be sensational," he says.

Instead of concentrating on discouraging people from using drugs - the central plank of attempts to tackle the problem over the last 20 years - we should instead look at ways of encouraging those who use them to do so safely.

"We need to inform young people, we need to minimise the harm and we need to treat those who have got into serious difficulty. That is about as much as a caring society can do to deal with these problems effectively," he says.

"Giving people a class A conviction for the use of something that is, to a majority of young people, a part of youth culture, is only going to fuel an anti-authority feeling, as well as occupy a lot of police time and resources."

He says there is no doubt that the attempt to stamp out drug use altogether has proved a failure, and it is now time to concentrate on a new approach.

"There is no parent who cares about young people who would not want to eradicate drugs from the community. That is a desirable ideal but it is frankly unrealistic. We can be in denial about drug use or we can acknowledge the fact and try and manage it as best we can - that is the stark choice facing society."