Taxpayer-subsidised Heroin for Addicts

Reports that heroin may be available on the NHS (because it is cheaper than having addicts becoming criminals to support their addiction ) indicates the imbecility of those who presume to govern us.

If we regard heroin addiction as undesirable then we must take steps to discourage rather than subsidise this. A sensible government would penalise heroin addiction wherever possible and not, as I heard recently, allow nearly 200 prisoners to get a total of £750,000 after being forced to stop taking drugs by going “cold turkey”, because this might be deemed by the European Court of Human Rights to have infringed criminals' rights.

If it is the inclination of the European Court of Human Rights to give more favourable treatment to imprisoned drug addicts at the expense of taxpaying citizens, then it is surely time we removed ourselves from its jurisdiction.

So sensible, simple and obvious. Strange, then, that no mainstream political party is so far offering us this option.

The late Milton Friedman, Thatcher's economist, was of the opinion that all drugs should be made legal. Legal recreational drug purchase will not bring about the breakdown of society since any crime committed under its influence could be regarded as an aggravating factor. Methods of punishment could be made short, sharp, and shockingly cheap, but it seems we no longer have the political will to do the obvious and sensible - a sign of senility and imbecility in a civilisation. Since extinction tends to swiftly follow senility, such problems of existence will no doubt resolve themselves in time. The Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest must also apply to ideas and civilisations, I imagine.