A MOTHER who has lost everything paying for her son's heroin habit thinks the drug should be available from GPs.

Judith Picken has today spoken out about how heroin ruined the life of her younger son Paul and almost destroyed her family.

But Judith, who works in the caring professions, is adamant that free, clean heroin available to addicts on the NHS would work better than methadone.

She read an Examiner Special Report last week where Dewsbury chemist and heroin expert Bob Dunkley called for the UK to follow the example of the Netherlands and Switzerland and prescribe the drug.

She said: "It makes perfect sense to give out heroin. Methadone does not work for most people because they don't get the buzz.

"Heroin addicts have nothing in their lives apart from the drug. Methadone is not the same.

"If they were given the drug they would not have to turn to crime and would not have to have both heroin and methadone."

Judith's son Paul has been using heroin for 10 years. The family have been forced to sell their home and have plunged into debt to fund his habit.

"They never get enough methadone so they have to go out looking for heroin. If we were to give that to them in a controlled manner it would solve so many problems."