HEALTH chiefs have hit back at claims that pints of methadone are being doled out to drug addicts.

Experts from CommuniCare's new East Lancashire Drug Service denied the claims -made by Andre Rebello and four fellow East Lancashire coroners, slamming the 'shared care' system of dispensing the heroin substitute.

In a statement released this week CommuniCare say addicts who seek help are given a daily dose of methadone to reduce the risk of overdose or re-sale.

The statement went on: "There are circumstances where daily dispensing is not appropriate, where clients have demonstrated a high degree of responsibility - an integral goal of treatment - or where clients are in employment which would be jeopardised by an insistence on daily pick-up.

"CommuniCare welcomes the debate which the coroners' comments have initiated and is keen to meet the coroners, and other interested parties, to address this difficult problem."

In last week's Citizen Langho mother Niamh Astles-Noone, whose 16-year-old son Gareth died of a methadone overdose in 1995, praised the coroners' report and urged Blackburn MP Jack Straw to seek a Royal Commission to curb the problem.

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