DURHAM Police has become a drug dealer – the force is to supply heroin addicts with a medical grade form of heroin called diamorphine.

This will cost the police budget, and therefore the tax-paying public of Durham, £15,000 per addict.

Durham's Police and Crime Commissioner Ron Hogg has proposed this scheme based on a study in Darlington some six years ago by Kings College London. Mr Hogg said: “It really is a very sensible approach which will help them and reduce crime.” This may be the case, but what is not clear however is how many addicts went on to remain or return to the addiction and therefore a life of crime to service their habit.

The programme will be offered to a small number of “prolific” offenders and not everyone who has a heroin addiction. This addiction can cost up to £300 per week. The question here is what constitutes a “prolific offender” - what is the cutoff point?

Surely the supply of a synthetic substitute for heroin should come from the NHS and not the police.

The actual choice for who receives these ‘drugs’ would surely need careful examination conducted with the assistance of health care specialists and not be based on the addict’s criminal record.

When the police start paying for drugs for heroin addicts as a crime prevention methodology, one could argue that next they should pay for the insurance of those people who regularly drive a motor car on the road without said insurance. Why do the police not supply new drivers with dash-cams in order that they learn from their mistakes and therefore reduce the amount of accidents?

Is that too much of a stretch?

The police prevent and detect crime. They cannot surely get involved in deciding who is a prolific criminal due to an addiction of heroin and then pay to put them on a programme of synthetic drugs in the hope that they will stop offending.

The modern day copper is not qualified to make such judgements.

The police are under so much stress from budget cuts, reductions in numbers of officers and back room staff that they have enough to do without overlapping as health care workers.

This is a headline grabbing policy resurrected from six years ago by a commissioner looking for a quick fix social policy which takes his force beyond its job description and, as an ex police officer, I would suspect out of most officers’ comfort zone.

Stephen Place, Ukip chair, Richmond (Yorks)