Inmates face curb on methadone handouts

Inmates face curb on methadone handouts

Jailed heroin addicts are to be told they must try to become drug-free, under new guidelines issued to prison governors and healthcare staff.

There has been concern, highlighted in The Times, about the overprescribing of the heroin substitute methadone in jails in England. Almost 20,000 inmates were put on methadone last year, a rise of 57 per cent on the previous year.

The surge in methadone prescriptions has led critics to complain that it is used to make inmates easier to control in overcrowded jails. Both the Department of Health and the Ministry of Justice deny the allegation but the worry that it is being overprescribed has prompted health officials to update guidance for clinicians.

The three-page guidance admits that some prisoners may be being kept on methadone longer than necessary. It points to concern that the prescribing of methadone is being started in jails without the required three-monthly review arrangements. As a result some prisoners may be kept on methadone longer than is clinically appropriate, the guidance states.

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‘Too many prisoners put on methadone and abandoned’

Too many prisoners are being given methadone without further effort to help them to beat their drug habit, according to the founder of an addiction centre.

“It is state-induced dependency. We are putting them on methadone and parking them,” Noreen Oliver said.

She founded Burton Addiction Centre, Staffordshire, which tries to rehabilitate former prisoners. They are detoxed over three to four weeks before being put into a four-month therapeutic programme. Then they move into self-contained units, paying their own bills, working in job placements or undertaking educational courses or voluntary work.

“It is about getting back into society and taking responsibility for their own lives,” Ms Oliver said.