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Police in Durham are to hand out free heroin to drug users. They say it will both cut crime and save money and will encourage addicts to keep to the straight and narrow.

But the cost per addict per annum is an eye-watering 15,000. This is utter nonsense. All this will achieve is to give addicts clean fixes.

Surely the only aim here should be to get these addicts off drugs and its darned difficult to envisage how that would happen.

Campaigners say that addiction is an illness akin to cancer and the victim should be treated in a similar fashion. In some instances there will be some justification for that view.

When will our PCs stop being so PC?

Nick Ferrari

Someone unfortunate enough to have little or no parental guidance, who then goes on to fail at school, finds it impossible to get a job then has a disastrous relationship with a partner, is likely to seek something that numbs the ceaseless pain and dims consciousness of their appalling situation.

Obviously, sympathy and help should be afforded to them, but giving them free heroin is not the answer. Then, there are those who commit a litany of offences to fuel their habit and the insanity of this madcap scheme will actually reward them.

So lets get this straight: taxpayers cash will be spent to fund a criminals lifestyle and the drugs handed over by the police. Who came up with this idea, Pete Doherty?

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Current legislation against drugs has failed and the long line of police chiefs who have promised to wage war on drugs have come up empty-handed.

Its not entirely their fault as, in many cases, the courts have failed to impose the sorts of sentences that could be seen to have any effect but the prevalence of drug use increases by the day.

The drugs are easier to come by and are cheaper and the money the dealers can make continues to increase as demand soars.

Justifying the plan in Durham, Chief Constable Mike Barton said: We need to get over our moral panic about giving people heroin as part of a treatment plan. Our primary concern is to prevent crime... Addiction is a medical problem not a criminal justice problem.

And there we have it. A senior police officer lecturing us about why we need not panic over giving free drugs to junkies. What if one of these addicts has 18 months of free heroin and then goes back to crime?

Do you suppose we get our 22,500 back? No, me neither.

Sadly, this is just another step in the path of decline for our police who are being turned into social workers. Their authority is constantly diminished and then politicians are baffled when crime increases.

On Friday it was revealed that knife crime has increased to the highest level in six years and this is in no small way due to the restrictions imposed on police by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary to limit the amount of stop and searches.

Police have to explain why they are stopping a possible suspect and then give them a sheet detailing everything that took place.

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While I am not advocating people being routinely dragged off the streets and hurled into the back of a van by police and kept in a darkened cell for hours, surely the balance has gone the other away.

There are still plenty of good police officers out there, I speak with them regularly on my call-in breakfast radio show, and they are even more frustrated with how their hands are tied than we are.

The role of the police is to protect us and lock up the bad guys. Positioning themselves almost as NHS outreach workers is not the way forward, but just when will our PCs stop being so PC?

It is a scandal that many of the relatives of those who lost their lives in the calamitous Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts were not invited to the unveiling of a memorial to the fallen by the Queen in London last week.

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More than 600 servicemen and women laid down their lives in those wars so who on Earth took the decision not to offer invitations to their families?

Occupying some of the best seats, instead, were members of the Royal Family and current and former senior politicians, which is right even in the case of Tony Blair, the man who took us into the disastrous wars, as he would have been damned if he did attend and equally damned if he did not.

However, why were former ambassadors invited instead of proud family members? It wouldnt have brought all those brave men and women back, but it would have showed how much the lost ones were valued.

What is it with this Government and doctors? As if they are not bruised enough after their lengthy battle with the junior doctors there is now a plan to allow patients to name and shame GPs with long waiting times.

Architects of the scheme say it will encourage surgeries to improve. Cobblers. It will sour the relationship between patient and doctor and demoralise our GPs yet further.

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Nick Ferrari: Political correctness is turning our police into social services - Express.co.uk