PRESCRIBING heroin legally to registered addicts would not solve the problem that led the five Ipswich victims into prostitution, a national radio programme has claimed.

PRESCRIBING heroin legally to registered addicts would not solve the problem that led the five Ipswich victims into prostitution, a national radio programme has claimed.

BBC Radio Four presenter Simon Cox met heroin addicts who are on a trial programme to get diamorphine - the medical name for heroin - on the NHS to break the link between drugs and crime.

However, there were also warnings from some experts that this was a very expensive programme - and it would not prevent people from getting into the murky world of drugs in the first place.

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett and the former chief constable of Cambridgeshire, Tom Lloyd, have both called for more heroin to be prescribed to serious addicts.

As part of yesterday's programme, Mr Cox spoke to addicts in Ipswich who said they took heroin and crack cocaine because they enjoyed the buzz they gave.

One woman told the programme: “Why do people do drugs? It's not because they're abused. It's because they want to do drugs. Drugs are nice.”

Whitton vicar Andrew Dotchin, who knew Tania Nicol, said it was drugs that kept many people on the street: “It was not always drugs that put them there in the first place, but it is drugs that keep them there.”

Brian Tobin from the Iceni Project, which works with drug addicts, warned that enabling more people to get heroin on prescription could make it more difficult for them to kick the drug habit altogether.