Heroin substitute treatment should not be time limited, says report commissioned by government

No time limit should be imposed on drug users’ access to heroin substitute treatment, a report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommends,1 because doing so could increase the possibility of relapse and drive up crime.

The council was commissioned in June 2014 by the then minister for crime prevention, Norman Baker, to advise the Inter-Ministerial Group on Drugs on whether access to opioid substitution therapy should be time limited and how to optimise outcomes from use of this therapy.

In its report, published on 6 November, the council said …