A North-East MP has called on the Government to make free heroin available on NHS prescription to drug addicts.

Dari Taylor MP is calling for a change in the law to cut the amount of drug-related crime.

The MP for Stockton South described Teesside, which has 850 registered heroin addicts, as "the drugs capital of the North" and has written to each of her constituents for their views on the proposal.

Her call follows similar comments last year by GP Dr Ian Guy, who treats addicts at his Middlesbrough surgery.

Mrs Taylor said: "I've had an ambivalent response from both the Home Office and the Prime Minister, but this problem is huge and it needs radical answers.

"Police tell me that addicts are paying £45 to £100 a day on heroin and they are stealing to buy it.

"They've told me Teesside is the drugs capital of the North-East and hard drugs are freely available. Prescribing heroin would lock addicts into a rehabilitation regime and release them from the stranglehold of the dealers."

The news comes on the morning a controversial report by university experts claims that Ecstasy may not be dangerous.

Research by Liverpool University and California's Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre, in the US, published in The Psychologist, strongly criticises studies which suggest the drug causes long-term brain damage and mental problems.

But the findings were branded despicable by John Betts, father of Leah Betts, who died after taking Ecstasy in Essex, in 1995.

He said: "Whenever someone tries to say a drug is not as bad as people think it is, there is an ulterior motive, and, mark my words, the same is true even in this case. I think that is despicable."

Recent estimates suggest ten per cent of young people in the UK have tried Ecstasy.

During 2001, the drugclaimed the life of three young people from the region - Lisa Teasdale, 15, of Middlesbrough, Stacey Laight, also 15, of Horden, County Durham, and Thomas Staniforth, 20, of York, a rising soccer star at Sheffield Wednesday. All three had taken the drug while nightclubbing.