Heroin addicts are being prescribed 1.8 million courses of methadone each year instead of being forced to go "cold turkey".
Included in that figure at least 9,250 prisoners are taking the heroin substitute, which costs local NHS budgets up to £15,000 per course of treatment.
The number of prescriptions has soared 70 per cent from 1.046million in 2004 to 1.784million last year. It is the equivalent of doctors signing 4,890 prescriptions every day.
The cost of the treatment is also rocketing - up 38 per cent from £16million in 2004 to £22million in 2006.
Professor Neil McKeganey, from the Centre for Drug Misuse Research, Glasgow, said only around 7 per cent of offenders on methadone courses achieve abstinence after three years.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "The flawed efforts to manage - not end - addiction make it part of the problem, not the solution.
"We would extend abstinence-based drug rehabilitation to get addicts off all drugs for good."
Included in that figure at least 9,250 prisoners are taking the heroin substitute, which costs local NHS budgets up to £15,000 per course of treatment.
The number of prescriptions has soared 70 per cent from 1.046million in 2004 to 1.784million last year. It is the equivalent of doctors signing 4,890 prescriptions every day.
The cost of the treatment is also rocketing - up 38 per cent from £16million in 2004 to £22million in 2006.
Professor Neil McKeganey, from the Centre for Drug Misuse Research, Glasgow, said only around 7 per cent of offenders on methadone courses achieve abstinence after three years.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "The flawed efforts to manage - not end - addiction make it part of the problem, not the solution.
"We would extend abstinence-based drug rehabilitation to get addicts off all drugs for good."
