£22million bill for heroin substitute prescribed to addicts on the NHS

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Drug addicts are being given 1.8million methadone prescriptions each year instead of being made to go "cold turkey".

Those receiving the heroin substitute - which costs local NHS budgets up to £15,000 a course - include at least 9,250 prisoners.

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.

The free drugs are being handed out despite little evidence that they help addicts beat their problem.

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."