The Home Office however so far refuses to consider even a trial of an in-prison NEP. Originally launched in 1998 - and revised in December 2002 as part of the Government’s Updated Drug Strategy - the Prison Service Drug Strategy plays a key role in the wider resettlement agenda of reducing re-offending.

Broadly, the Drug Strategy is aimed at reducing the supply of illegal drugs into prison. At the same time the strategy is to reduce the demand for drugs among prisoners through effective treatment interventions. This is made by assessing individuals’ needs through the CARATs intervention, clinically managing their withdrawal from drug dependency through detoxification, providing drug rehabilitation programmes and support, and mandatory and voluntary drug testing programmes to encourage them to remain drug-free.

This policy was recently challenged by a prisoner John Shelley. Serving a sentence in HMP Long Lartin, he claims that the refusal of the Prison Service to consider NEPs represents a real and immediate risk to his life. His case argued that he was entitled to the equivalent treatment as in the wider community, in this case access to clean needles. At a judicial review in April 2005 a High Court judge refused permission for the case to continue. The judge cited security concerns and concerns about condoning drug use.

Human Rights lawyer Sean Humber told Positive Nation magazine: “These are the discussions society had about a decade ago. In a sense the Prison Service weighing in with these issues is not really relevant. Society generally agreed that NEPs should be implemented. We don’t really think it’s for the Home Office to reargue the point and come to a different conclusion.”

He added that all international studies on NEPs disprove the Prison Service’s arguments, claiming that in prisons where NEPs have been run, primarily in Spain, there has never been a case of an assault on a prison officer with a needle. As of September 2005 John Shelley’s solicitors plan to go to the Court of Appeal and are seeking funding from the Legal Services Commission.