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The government's drugs policy should focus on the 250,000 "problematic users" whose habits cause most damage to themselves and others, the House of Commons home affairs select committee said in its report published this week.

It recommends a trial programme of carefully supervised heroin prescription to addicts along the lines of those under way in the Netherlands and Switzerland.

If successful, such a system "should replace the little-used British system of licensing", says the committee.

A pilot programme of safe injecting rooms is also recommended to get chronic heroin users off the streets. This should be established "without delay" and, if successful, extended across the country, states the report.

Committee chairperson Chris Mullin, Labour MP for Sunderland South, said that all drug use was harmful to some extent and should be discouraged but that we have to "face the fact" that large numbers of young people take drugs.

"As far as users are concerned, our priorities should be realistic education, readily available treatment and harm reduction. Above all, we need to focus on that relatively small minority of drug users who are making a misery of their own lives and those of others. The criminal law should be reserved primarily for dealers."

He said the government should substantially raise the funding for treatment for heroin addicts and ensure that methadone treatment and complementary therapies are universally available to those who need them says the committee.

GPs need better training in substance misuse, which should be part of both the undergraduate and post-graduate medical curriculum.

Other proposals include the reclassification of cannabis as a Class C drug and ecstasy as Class B, and the creation of a new offence of "supply for gain" to distinguish between social supply and dealing.

- The Government's Drugs Policy: Is It Working? See www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmhaff.htm