Letter: Heroin options

Alex MacKinnon (Letters, 7 May) implies that methadone plays a vital role in not only delivering treatment to heroin addicts but that they can also be monitored and helped in other ways.

Would he agree that heroin should also be distributed in a similar fashion for similar reasons? At present heroin is distributed with no advice, except from dodgy drug dealers, who adulterate drugs to spin them out. It is not surprising that this results in disease and death, but then, they are only "junkies".

Heroin in pure form is a relatively safe drug. That can be proved by the fact that some doctors are licensed to provide heroin to their addict patients, and no doctor would risk being struck off for killing a patient.

If addicts were provided with clean quality heroin, they could get on with their lives without thieving and prostitution, and over time may reduce the dose to become former addicts.

Stanley McWhirter

Balcarres Street

Edinburgh