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A senior police officer said today heroin addicts should be prescribed the drugs on the NHS to stop them committing crime.
Howard Roberts, deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police told the Association of Chief Police Officers' conference on drugs it would cost £12,000 a year for each addict to be treated this way.
But the treatment would be cost-effective in the long run because users steal at least £45,000-worth of property a year to feed their addiction.
Currently addicts are prescribed the heroin substitute methadone.
Mr Roberts stressed his comments, made at the event in Manchester, were a personal view. not ACPO policy.
However as vice chairman of the ACPO drugs committee his comments were immediately welcomed by one leading drugs charity.
Mr Roberts said: "We should actively consider prescribing diamorphine, pharmaceutical heroin, to those seriously addicted to heroin as part of a treatment programme for addiction.
"My motives for making such a statement are frankly this, there is an undeniable link between addicted offenders and appalling levels of criminality, as heroin and crack cocaine addicts commit crime from burglary to robbery, to sometimes murder, to get the money to buy drugs to satisfy their addiction. The resulting misery to society is huge."
Home Office research showed heroin addicts commit 432 offences a year, he said.
"Therefore the logic is clear, I suggest, that we take highly addicted offenders out of committing crime to feed their addiction, into closely supervised treatment programmes that, as part of the programme, can prescribe diamorphine.
He added: "Of course, getting people off drugs altogether must be the objective but I personally do believe that we have lived with the terrible consequences of relatively uncontained addiction for far too long, and if we are to make a greater impact we need to fundamentally address the method of operation of the criminal marketplace for heroin."
At the moment 300-400 drug users receive heroin for their dependency under a joint Home Office and Department of Health pilot project.
The schemes in London, the South East and North of England see addicts injecting heroin under supervision of clinical staff.
A report on the project is expected next month.
Widespread trials of such a scheme in Holland and Switzerland reported users turning away from crime to feed their habits when they were prescribed drugs.
Martin Barnes, chief executive of drugs charity DrugScope, said: "We support calls for the extension of heroin prescribing, which for some problem drug users can be an extremely effective form of drug treatment.
"It can have immediate health benefits for the drug user and can for some be the best route to becoming drug-free.
"There is compelling evidence that heroin prescribing, although more expensive than some forms of drug treatment, is cost-effective in reducing drug-related crime and other costs to communities."