Britain’s 6,200 state-sponsored drug addicts hooked on heroin substitute for more than ten years

Thousands of drug addicts have spent more than a decade hooked on a heroin substitute prescribed by the NHS at a cost of £200 million, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Doctors prescribe the opiate drug methadone hydrochloride to help hard-drug users kick their habit. But in many cases patients simply became ‘parked’ on the replacement and find it even harder to give up.