View report page

DRUG DEPENDENCY
The abuse of all drugs of dependence is expressly forbidden by law. The
existing legislation was strengthened during the year by the Dangerous Drugs Act,
1967, which empowers the Secretary of State to make further regulations (under the
Dangerous Drugs Act, 1965) for preventing the improper use of drugs.
The new regulations, which were awaited at the end of the year, will require
all medical practitioners to notify to a central authority particulars of anyone
suspected of addiction to drugs and will prohibit the administration to addicts of
certain drugs except under Government licence.
The Act seeks to implement two important recommendations of the second
Brain Committee (1965), namely, that all addicts to dangerous drugs should be
notified and that the prescribing of "hard" drugs to addicts (i.e. cocaine and
heroin) should be limited to doctors on the staff of treatment centres.
It also sets out the procedure for dealing with contravention of the new
regulations, and penalties. There are also powers to make new regulations in
regard to the safe custody of drugs.
An important section of the Act gives further powers to the police to search
premises and vehicles and to search and detain persons where there are reasonable
grounds to suspect illegal possession of drugs.
Information on the extent of drug dependency is, of course, notoriously difficult
to obtain and evaluate. However, the Health Department has no evidence
pointing to this being a problem in the borough at present.
(See Statistical Tables 25, 26 and 27)
HOME HELP SERVICE
Under Section 29 of the National Health Service Act, 1946, a local health
authority may make arrangements for providing domestic help for households
where such help is required owing to the presence of any person who is ill, lying-in,
an expectant mother, aged, or a child not over compulsory school age within the
meaning of the Education Act, 1944.
Difficulty was still experienced in recruiting suitable staff for this service, but
an improved figure of nearly 147 whole-time equivalent home-helps was reached
at the end of the year. It was, however, still necessary to limit the hours of help
given in individual cases in order to assist as many applicants as possible.
62