Another sign of the silliness of the current regulatory regime for drugs:
Spending of hundreds of millions of pounds on drugs treatment programmes has failed to improve the success rate of addicts coming off heroin and cocaine, according to a report.
The budget of the National Treatment Agency (NTA) has increased from £253 million in 2004-05 to £384 million last year, it said. But the number who emerge from programmes drug-free is still small.
Last year, 5,829 users were cured of their addiction, compared with 5,759 three years ago.
Given that pharmaceutically pure heroin costs less than the price of a prescription for a day\’s worth, we could provide those 6,000 or so addicts with their supply for £10 million or so a year.
£384m for 5,829 users = £65,877 per.
Nice work if you can get it.
Don’t forget the money spent on the ones who /aren’t/ cured, though…