Britain ‘Retoxifying’ Pre-release Inmates to Reduce Post-release Overdoses

British prisoners who have been clean for years are being reintroduced to narcotics before being set loose in a bid to increase their tolerance levels before they hit the streets.

The controversial practice of preparing reformed heroin abusers for release with small doses of methadone aims to save lives. Only those who are deemed at risk of re-offending are subjected to the treatment; however, one has to question the logic of preparing prisoners for release with the very thing that got them locked up in the first place.

Methadone is not heroin, it is a synthetic opioid that mimics its effects; it is used as an analgesic (pain killer) and to ween opioid users off their drugs of dependence. However, it should be noted that methadone is in itself highly addictive, and by treating possibly reformed drug addicts with methadone, prison doctors are dramatically increasing the chances that they will go back to using heroin.

The Telegraph reported Kathy Gyngell, of the Centre for Policy Studies as saying:

This doesn’t get people off drugs – but captures them in the grip of methadone instead.

Senior police officers are reportedly less than impressed, with one telling The Telegraph:

We have enough difficulties coping with drug-fuelled crime without ministers sanctioning this. It’s one of the craziest ideas from any government.

According to The Sun the ‘retoxification’ program has been in place for five years in 33 English prisons; throughout which more than 460 prisoners have been “treated”.

A Health Department spokesperson commented:

The Department of Health does not have a central programme of retoxification of prisoners.

In exceptional circumstances, qualified doctors can decide whether to use this treatment and the clinical guidance is clear that they should only do so when there is a serious risk of the prisoner reusing drugs immediately on release and therefore putting themselves at risk of death from an accidental drugs overdose if they don’t get it.

Other drug treatment techniques should always be used first.

While I have never been to prison myself, I know a few people that have been and a few more that work in them who always gave me the impression that drugs were, and are, readily obtainable in prison; albeit at a price. Taking that into consideration, one would think that it would be in the best interests of both prison authorities and the prisoners themselves to consider the possibility that prisoners who are not using drugs in prison may not want to use them outside. While reintroducing prisoners to opioids may save some of them from fatal overdoses, it definitely gets the vast majority of them re-addicted to the drug that likely fueled the behavior that got them locked up in the first place.