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Methadone for addicts costs £16m a year

Prescribing the heroin-substitute methadone to drug addicts is costing Scotland more than £16 million a year, according to the latest official figures.

Nearly 495,000 doses were handed out to addicts during 2008/09, the last year for which data is available.

The prescription rate is equivalent to a national average of 96 in every 1,000 Scots – an increase of nearly a fifth in the last five years alone.