Heroin on prescription

So where do you suggest diverting the limited financial resources? Towards illicit drug programs (minimisation/education/prevention/enforcement) for a relatively small population of users and relative costs, or towards cigarettes/alcohol which have massive social costs and a huge population of users. Dont make me find the graph. I'll track one down that says "per capita" for you if that helps.

There is no way that decriminalising (as distinct from legalising) heroin would result in an impact greater than cigarettes.

NB: I drink and smoke, often in irresponsible quantites. I can assure you, legal or otherwise, heroin will never enter my body.

The thing is. The thing is, as all smokers know, cigarettes more than pay for their costs, which are almost all healthcare costs.

The IAS estimates that treasury revenues from alcohol of £14bn cover its healthcare costs but not healthcare costs plus wider economic and criminal justice costs of £20bn.

Drugs are, of course, a pure cost - no revenues to the treasury (that we know of) - and the cost is slightly lower than that of alcohol at £16.8bn. Transform, the drugs policy think tank, have estimated that setting up a regulated market for problem class A drugs would cost the treasury as little as £3bn by comparison, which is a saving of nearly £14bn - which is, of course, a larger net reduction of cost than would be achieved by banning alcohol altogether (not that this is desirable or likely).