BBC attacked over coverage of 'misleading' methadone report

The BBC has been drawn into an increasingly bitter row surrounding the merits and costs of treating heroin addicts.
The charity DrugScope has written to the corporation complaining about its coverage of a report by a rightwing thinktank, the Centre for Policy Studies, that warned the prescription of the heroin substitute methadone was "entrenching addiction".
The report, Breaking the Habit, said prescribing addicts with methadone had been an expensive failure and claimed there were 320,000 problem drug users on benefits, costing the taxpayer billions of pounds.
The row has highlighted the increasingly polarised nature of the debate on treatment for heroin addicts. Last year the prime minister, David Cameron, described methadone as "a government-authorised form of opium".
The centre's report claims there are as many addicts today as there were in 2004-05. It notes: "Fewer than 4% of addicts emerge from treatment free from dependency. Drug deaths have continued to rise."
The thinktank suggested that instead of prescribing methadone, greater success would be achieved by funding small rehabilitation units that would encourage abstinence on a payment by results basis. Its hard-hitting claims have attracted extensive coverage and last week provoked a national debate on drug addiction treatment.
While many in the drug treatment industry welcomed the centre's call to reconsider how the UK treats long-term addicts, the thinktank has been attacked over "misleading" figures. DrugScope said that it had written to the BBC to complain that, by giving extensive coverage to the report, the corporation had failed "to check the accuracy of claims made, particularly about the cost of treatment and methadone prescribing".
Martin Barnes, DrugScope's chief executive, asked why the corporation had repeated the report's claim that "methadone prescribing costs £730m a year", saying the figure was for the drug treatment system as a whole.
Barnes outlined a series of further examples where he said the report had conflated the true cost of methadone treatment and benefits paid to drug addicts. He pointed out that last year the National Audit Office concluded that drug treatment represents "good value for money" for the taxpayer.
Barnes said: "Not only are the misleading claims potentially damaging to public confidence in drug treatment at a time of spending cuts and competing priorities, they risk reinforcing the stigma and barriers many people in recovery experience."
A spokesman for the BBC confirmed it had received the complaint.
Jamie Doward @'The Guardian'