Dundee chemists have received hundreds of thousands of pounds of tax payers’ money to dish out methadone, according to new statistics.
Individual pharmacists across the city were paid an average of more than £30,000 to provide addicts with prescriptions last year, according to the data.
In December 2014, chemists in Dundee received more cash than any other council area in Scotland for providing the heroin substitute.
Each methadone outlet in the city claimed an average of £2,764 a month, more than double the Scottish average of £1,269 a month.
City council social work and health convener Ken Lynn said he thought the high cost of methadone in Dundee could be linked to people using the heroine substitute for too long.
The SNP councillor told The Courier: “Methadone does a lot of good for a lot of people but it is wrong to have someone parked on it for years.
“It should be used as a way to wean someone off heroin. People shouldn’t be taking the same dose for 10 years.
“But to help people do that, get clean, we have to not just help them off the drugs but also provide them with opportunities in employment and education.
“Coming off is extremely difficult and we need to make sure there is a goal for people who are doing it.”
Chemists in the city also consistently dished out more methadone than the Scottish average of 32 items a month.
The total spend across Scotland on methadone was £17.8 million, prompting Professor Neil McKeganey, from the Centre for Drug Misuse Research, to claim the drug treatment programme is “out of control”.
The Scottish Government said both doses and costs linked to opioid treatment had been dropping.