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Calls For NHS To Abandon Addicts

Simon Heffer - the Telegraph columnist who leans so far right that his left ear fills up when it rains - has called for drug addicts to be made to pay for their own treatment.

Mr Heffer, apparently under the impression that full stops cost more to print than commas, said junkies were draining government funds.

In an article published on telegraph.co.uk, he said that a user’s criminality ‘taints’ their right to treatment, and demanded they be turned away by the NHS.

“As our smug and incompetent Government basks in the glory (as it sees it) of the National Health Service, in its 60th anniversary year, there is much debate about how efficiently this apparently vital organisation is run,” wrote Mr Heffer.

“Just as people who have caused car crashes get the bill for the ambulance sent to them, so should those who sustain self-inflicted wounds through the crime of drug-taking be charged for whatever the NHS does for them,” he added. “Making junkies pay - literally - for the damage they do to society would be a start.”

Mr Heffer did not say where drug-users were likely to get the money from.

He did claim that drugs were responsible for at least 70 per cent of the crime in the country. This may well be the case, with many users forced to steal in order to fund their habit.

But Mr Heffer neglected to state how much higher the figure will be if they need to finance a private health insurance habit on top of the drugs.

They could probably finance it with a job writing inflammatory and ridiculously out of touch nonsense for a national newspaper.

But that, as unfortunately does Mr Heffer, misses the point somewhat.

Demanding more money from those who are dependent on drugs is unlikely to cut crime. All it will do is lead to an increase in people dying on the streets, although that does seem to be his somewhat uncharitable intention.

"The evil that drug dealers do cannot be adequately punished under our present law; I would take a leaf out of China's book, and have them taken out and shot in the back of the head,” he added. Someone should tell him that the Chinese are communists.