Do you think junkies would have these kind of problems getting clean?

i dont think its as hard these days. but i know it still isnt easy. i saw a hbo about the same thing, and they get these pills that kick the sickness. but then they get addicted to the pills.

I can't speak for America either, but I'd be surprised if their system is any better funded or managed than in the UK.

And from what I hear about the social services here, the problems are just the ones highlighted in the film: no money; bored and overworked staff; inaccurate information; poor and badly-managed systems.

The scenes where the two are shunted from one place to another - waiting in lines for hours just to be told they don't have paperwork or have come to the wrong place - are exactly in accord with the stories I hear from my relative who has to deal with this stuff all the time.

Each successive government promises to trim expenses from these systems, ignoring the fact that there's nothing to trim. All they ultimately do is implement 'cost-cutting measures' that add to the burdens of the staff on the front-line, and usually mess up the few systems that actually work.

There are no votes in helping junkies - just in promises to reduce crime and save money. A shocking survey recently revealed that in one of the UK's hot-spot cities there were a total of just three places for rehab cases - to serve hundreds of people applying for them.

The ridiculous thing is that there are cheap programs that reduce crime to zero and turn junkies into citizens: giving out free, medical-grade heroin - which is what they want - is cheap, kills the local drug trade, eliminates prostitution and robbery, and allows addicts to have a life that is not dominated by the overriding need to get a fix. They get jobs and live normal lives. In time many reach a stage where they want to stop their addiction: the one odd element in their new existence.

But the few times this method has been successfully tried, the clinics were eventually shut down by politics.