THE news that drug addicts are to be offered help to set up their own businesses may well be greeted with derision in some quarters.

Why should people who choose to flush their lives down the toilet be offered special help?

It is difficult enough for people who are not addicts to get a new business off the ground, so why should this particular group be offered preferential treatment?

Those that have been victims of crime perpetrated by addicts may well also have very strong feelings on this subject.

However, we feel that the project, run by charity Turning Point, not only makes good social sense, but good economic sense as well.

According to Home Office statistics, the average heroin user costs society £30,827 a year.

That's a lot of money - far more, in fact, than the cost of any help these addicts will receive from projects such as this one.

Turning Point itself claims that, for every £1 spent on helping an addict, the community gains £3.

You don't need to be running your own business to work out that is money well spent.

Although schemes such as this are welcome, they are in essence only a reactive solution to this difficult problem.

The only long-term solution to the scourge of drug addiction is for people not to be tempted by drugs in the first place.

To borrow a phrase from a well-known politician, "education, education, education" is the only answer.

If youngsters can be educated about the dangers of drugs, then worthy schemes such as this will not be necessary.