AMID the rampant misery caused by drugs in our community, reported today is an eminently commonsense call to curb the lethal spin-off caused by abuse of the heroin substitute, methadone.

It is supposed to be an alternative, prescribed by doctors to addicts with the aim of weaning them off illegal heroin.

But, too often, it is a killer itself. It is causing two deaths a week in Lancashire alone.

Equally worrying, it ends up being sold by addicts to others and becomes yet another street drug.

And there is evidence that teenagers have become hooked on heroin after being introduced to methadone.

Yet, all this is happening with a drug over which the authorities are supposed to have control.

Rather than curing the drugs problem, in many cases it is adding to it.

It is simply due to addicts being prescribed too much methadone at once.

Thus, when councillors at Pendle call for the system to be changed - so that methadone users are given only daily doses which they must take there and then in the pharmacies where they are dispensed - one can only wonder why this was not implemented long ago.

And this backs up the concern of Andr Rebello, the coroner for Blackburn, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley, who last month said that unless doctors supplied methadone responsibly, only specialist pharmacies should be allowed to dispense it and, then, only in daily amounts.

What is wrong with that?

It in no way interferes with the doctors' clinical judgment, but would merely place necessary and sensible controls over the supply of the drugs they prescribe.

It would restore methadone to its purportedly useful role and, at a stroke, cut the lethal and criminal abuse of it.

The trouble is that the call for this to happen has so far provoked only discussion.

At Pendle, for instance, it is just part of the council's strategy for improving the health of the community.

Talks are to be held with health authority officials on the "possibility" of stricter dispensing of the drug.

It is time for action, rather than talk.

Home Secretary Jack Straw and Health Minister Frank Dobson should immediately classify methadone as drug that can only be dispensed in daily doses and that users must take it on the spot.

Otherwise, this senseless and lethal business of a legalised, tax-funded contribution to drug abuse stands to continue.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.