MORE pioneering drop-in centres are likely to open in a bid to help North-East drug users beat the habit - and a doctor who believes heroin should be available on the NHS is backing a new surgery for drug addicts in the region.

Last year, Middlesbrough GP Dr Ian Guy opened the country's first medical centre catering purely for drug addicts. He is also one of the first GPs in the country to be given a licence to prescribe heroin - with the support of Cleveland police.

Dr Guy believes crime rates should fall "quite markedly" if heroin addicts could be put in touch with a legal supply of the drug.

Spurred on by the success of his substance misuse clinics in Grangetown and east Middlesbrough, health bosses are planning similar centres elsewhere in Teesside, which has one of the largest substance abuse problems in the region.

A third Teesside drug clinic, at the Lawson Street Health Centre, Stockton, has opened along the same lines.

One of Dr Guy's partners, Dr Brendan Olding, runs the Lawson Street practice, which is expected to start with a list size of 400 patients.

Patients with drug problems in Stockton will be encouraged to register themselves and their families at the practice, which will offer the full range of medical services.

The Middlesbrough practice has shown how drug users can be treated at two locations in the town and Dr Guy believes the same can now be achieved in Stockton.

"Providing treatment for drug users increases their health and reduces their need to fund a heroin habit by committing crime," he said.

Meanwhile, the North-East mother of a heroin addict travelled to London this week in a bid to urge MPs to change drug legislation.

Tina Williams, 52, of Stockton, asked the Government's select committee on drugs to allow GPs to prescribe pure heroin, as well as its substitute methadone.

Her 32-year-old son has been addicted to the Class A drug for eight years, but he did not respond to methadone treatment.

In desperation, Ms Williams faced her "biggest moral dilemma", and felt her only option was to buy her son another fix of heroin.

She said that controlled GP prescriptions of pure heroin, rather than methadone, could help some addicts come off the drug.