The jailing of two pensioners in August for showing compassion to their heroin-addicted son is cruel and futile. Theirs was the action of loving parents. To jail parents for acting with intelligence and care is an act of barbarism. But the story was small news. There was no outcry.

 The same dilemma is faced by all families in this heartbreaking situation. A journalist was horrified when he discovered that one of his siblings was an addict. He forced the address of his supplier out of him – a Harley Street doctor. The stark choice, the doctor explained, was for the addict to continue to receive regular clean heroin from her and live a full, relatively normal life or to rely on street pushers, sink into a life of crime and end up with a further life expectancy of about 15 years.

Most politicians are locked in wretched denial of the obvious truth: the drugs laws multiply the perils of heroin. It’s an addictive drug, lethal in overdose, but deaths and drug crime are caused not by drug itself, but by its prohibition.

Legal heroin is not a novelty. In the 19th century opium, the mother of heroin, was widely used medically and recreationally. It had a down-market, loser image associated with low-life oriental immigrants. Then the drug companies created a high-tech, safe, refined version. The marketing image turned it into the “the medicine of heroes”. A fresh attractive name was needed and they coined “heroin”, from the word heroism in German and English. It was a commercial success.
The rot set in with American religious fundamentalism. Every European country introduced drug prohibition in 1920-21. Mercifully, we avoided the disaster of alcohol prohibition.

Their infantile belief was that prohibition would eliminate all drug use. Thirteen years of alcohol prohibition increased crime, created mafias and multiplied alcohol deaths. The handing over of the manufacture and sale of any dangerous drug to illegal operations guarantees an increase in harm. The lesson on alcohol prohibition is universally acknowledged, but the heroin myth persists.

 Britain plunged into its drugs crisis with a piece of knee-jerk tabloid legislation. In the late ’60s a few doctors were caught selling heroin meant for prescription. Something must be done, screamed the tabloids. Dogs bark. Children cry. Politicians legislate. The 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act criminalised the use of hard and soft drugs with severe penalties. It was approved with all-party support.

Before the 1971 Act, Britain had less than 5,000 heroin addicts. Nearly all were safely maintained by pure legal heroin. Deaths were rare and drug crime unknown. Some were veterans of the First World War addicted to battlefield morphine. A celebrated case was the author of National Velvet, Edith Bagnold. She became an addict after treatment with morphine. Daily she injected herself with prescribed heroin in prodigious quantities. She eventually died – peaceful, serene, in her bed, at the age of 91.

No such luck for 21st century addicts. Thirty-three years of the harshest European heroin prohibition has created at least 280,000 addicts and the continent’s worst drug deaths and crime.

Most politicians’ utterances on drugs make Chemical Ali sound mealy-mouthed and subtle. In 2000, the government set a target to reduce the availability of Class A drugs by 25 per cent by 2005 (and by 50 per cent by 2008). Like most targets, it has been a measure of failure that the government hopes we will forget. The National Treatment Agency says addiction is rising by seven per cent a year and the street price of heroin keeps falling because of oversupply. We are two-thirds of the way through a UN ten year strategy that has the deluded battle cry: “A drugs-free world – we can do it!” The UN Office on Drugs and Crime said the programme is “on target to reach its goals”: to eradicate drug abuse and the cultivation of coca, cannabis and opium by the year 2008. The illusions continue.

The UK’s hapless drugs czar appeared briefly, raised false hopes, promised heaven and created an ever-deepening drugs hell. The real hope comes from other czar-free countries. The Swiss had a three-year experiment in which they prescribed heroin to 1,146 addicts in 18 locations. They found: “Individual health and social circumstances improved drastically....dramatic improvements were found in the social stability of the addicts, including a steep fall in crime.”

There are equally impressive results from Holland, Luxembourg and Naples. It has been proven that providing a clean supply of drugs will improve the physical and mental health of users, cut crime in the community and drain the life out of the black market. In the company of journalist Matthew Parris I visited a huge church refuge for 300 addicts in Rotterdam. Inveterate users are supplied with heroin that they inject in shooting-up rooms. Support and job training is provided. It was not an edifying spectacle, but it is immeasurably better than the British alternative.

There was one celebrated British trial, but its lesson was disregarded. In Liverpool during the early 1990s Dr John Marks prescribed heroin. Police reported a 96 per cent reduction in acquisitive crime. Deaths from locally-acquired HIV infection and drug-related overdoses fell to zero. But, under pressure from the government, the project was closed down. In its ten years’ work, not one of its patients had died. In the first two years after it was closed, 41 died.
Sadly, the government’s courage is fading after their tentative relaxing of cannabis laws. They are relying on the acknowledged benefits of treatment, which show that a spending of £1.50 cuts £27 of drug crime. Progress in treatment is worthwhile, but slow.
The home affairs committee backed safe injecting houses and heroin prescribing. The Rowntree Foundation said the UK is one of the few countries where doctors can prescribe heroin legally. It is estimated that just 70 GPs are licensed to do so, but only 46 do – to 448 patients. Getting any drugs reform through Parliament would be politically wounding, but an increase in safe heroin provision could be achieved under present laws. It can and should be done.

While politicians addicted to chronic self-delusion posture and hug the comfort blanket of popularity, more young lives are ruined.