Now fight the methadone industry that keeps addicts hooked, says Iain Duncan Smith
Work and Pensions Secretary calls for end to heroin addicts being "parked" for years on methadone, unable to work
Mr Duncan Smith will call for addicts to be fully freed from a life on heroin in a speech to the Centre for Social Justice, the think tank he founded a decade ago. Photo: PA
By Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent
9:00PM GMT 15 Nov 2014
Iain Duncan Smith today calls for a radical change in approach to drugs in Britain by demanding that recovering heroin addicts practice abstinence and are not “parked” for years on methadone.
The Work and Pensions Secretary urges his colleagues to fight “vested interests” in pharmaceutical companies and treatment centres who profit from “merely replacing one addiction with another” by keeping addicts hooked on legal heroin replacements.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Duncan Smith criticises a decision last week by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), the Home Office’s expert body on drugs, urging ministers not to put a limit on how long addicts can be placed methadone.
Mr Duncan Smith will call for addicts to be fully freed from a life on heroin in a speech to the Social Justice Conference.
Drugs policy is the remit of the Home Secretary, Theresa May. However, Mr Duncan Smith is the chairman of the Cabinet committee on social justice, whose members include Mrs May.
Mr Duncan Smith’s aides stressed he agrees with the Government’s over-arching drugs policy, which sets out an objective for addicts to become clean.
However, he feels that treatment providers and drug companies are failing to fulfil that objective, and are instead “parking” addicts on methadone, leaving them unable to work or live fulfilling lives.
Methadone hydrochloride, a synthetic alternative to heroin, has been prescribed by doctors since the 1980s to tackle the heroin epidemic that hit Britain’s inner cities. It is highly addictive, but was intended to curb the spread of needle-borne diseases such as HIV and cut crime caused people looking to fund their addiction.
While the drug, usually given out by chemists as a green liquid with a GP’s prescription, was intended to be a stepping-stone to full treatment. However, it is now given to more than 140,000 addicts at a cost of £3,000 each a year. It includes more than 50,000 using it for more than 4 years, and more than 6,255 for more than a decade. Many of those taking it are unable to work and claim disability benefits.
If those people were forced to become fully clean, their health would improve, crime would fall and they would be able to enter the workplace, Mr Duncan Smith argues.
He acknowledges there is a role for methadone in weaning people off heroin. However, he warns there is an “incredibly stubborn” culture of placing addicts on it permanently, and a failure to provide addicts with the therapy they need to become clean.
“Under the last Labour Government, drug treatment became a tick-box exercise, so concerned with “harm reduction” that people were put on methadone at any cost. This in turn spawned a whole industry whose very interest is to keep people on the drug, too often merely replacing one addiction with another,” Mr Duncan Smith writes.
“The evidence shows just how far this policy has failed. Half of patients report using heroin on top of methadone regularly or sometimes, and nearly a third say they have sold, swapped or given their medication to someone else.
“Nor have those parked on methadone got the support they need, with 40% failing to receive psychosocial counselling alongside their prescription. The fact remains that the number of addicts in continuous opioid substitution therapy for 4 or more years has risen, approaching a staggering 50,000 people.
“Surely for outcomes to be sustainable, rehabilitation must be about tackling the real and underlying problems, rather than superficially bringing addiction under control.”
The ACMD last week advised the Home Office not to impose a blanket time limit on methadone prescriptions, saying it would result in addicts relapsing into heroin use, driven up crime and leading to fatal overdoses.
Mr Duncan Smith believes that decision amounts
He said the body, led by retired Oxford University pharmacologist Prof Les Iversen, was “providing cover” for continued drug addiction and had failed to take into account the harms caused by methadone addiction.
“This approach requires that we fight vested interests and challenge the status quo. But it is only in doing so that we will make a lasting difference to those battling addiction – delivering social justice for all in our society,” Mr Duncan Smith said.
Prof Iverson previously called for addicts to be issued with foil for free, because smoking heroin is less dangerous than injecting it because of the lowered risks of blood-borne diseases.
Why we must fight the methadone industry that denies addicts a full drug-free life
by Iain Duncan Smith, Work and Pensions Secretary
Beyond the corridors of Westminster, far away from Whitehall’s ivory towers, a revolution has been taking place across Britain. Quietly and often unseen, yet its aim has been radical: a historic break from the old tactics in our nation’s fight against poverty – for too long driven by political whims for quick wins, doing little to change people’s lives.
It is this Government that has campaigned for a radical new approach. Not just treating the symptoms, but meaningful support to tackle poverty at its source.
Now, in Britain’s poorest neighbourhoods, this quiet revolution is underway –grounded in social justice. This is about transforming people’s prospects, one life at a time. It is underpinned by a belief that no one should be written off. And it has long been at the heart of the Government’s vision for a better future for our country and our communities.
Much of what we have achieved has been without great fanfare. Yet occasionally an issue arises which brings into sharp relief just how progressive this agenda really is.
Drug addiction is one of the most damaging social problems that Britain faces. Yet when it comes to tackling that problem at its most serious, the accepted wisdom for too long was to maintain people in dependency – namely by using methadone as a substitute for illegal heroin use.
Under the last Labour Government, drug treatment became a tick-box exercise, so concerned with ‘harm reduction’ that people were put on methadone at any cost. This in turn spawned a whole industry whose very interest is to keep people on the drug, too often merely replacing one addiction with another.
The evidence shows just how far this policy has failed. Half of patients report using heroin on top of methadone regularly or sometimes, and nearly a third say they have sold, swapped or given their medication to someone else.
Nor have those parked on methadone got the support they need, with 40% failing to receive psychosocial counselling alongside their prescription. The fact remains that the number of addicts in continuous opioid substitution therapy for 4 or more years has risen, approaching a staggering 50,000 people.
Surely for outcomes to be sustainable, rehabilitation must be about tackling the real and underlying problems, rather than superficially bringing addiction under control.
That is why, from the start, this Government set out to change the way drug treatment is perceived and delivered – above all prioritising full recovery, meaning freedom from addiction altogether.
Through a range of pilot programmes – across prisons, employment services, and the rehab sector alike – we have pioneered a new holistic approach to drug treatment. As I have said before, the aim is to redefine success, delivering sustainable outcomes by breaking that addiction altogether.
For if you can get someone clean, improvements for both public health and criminal justice will follow. So too improved employment outcomes, as individuals in recovery overcome the barriers they face to work. Just as with the Government’s welfare reforms, this is about helping individuals to move from dependence to independence – all part of our long-term economic plan.
This a promising start. Importantly, we have seen an increasing rate of people coming out of rehab who have successfully completed treatment and left entirely drug-free – with the latest statistics showing a rise of 15,000 people in England compared to 5 years earlier.
Yet it remains that the culture of prescribing methadone has proved incredibly stubborn and difficult to break. There is still a huge amount more that Government must do, so that in practice treatment is about full recovery instead of maintenance.
So too the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which I believe should look again at its findings on rehabilitation – taking account of the harm done to individuals parked on methadone indefinitely, rather than providing cover for perpetuating drug addiction in the UK.
This approach requires that we fight vested interests and challenge the status quo. But it is only in doing so that we will make a lasting difference to those battling addiction – delivering social justice for all in our society.