Quitting Drugs For An iPod
You’re a drug addict? Here, have an iPod on the government!
“DRUG addicts are to be offered gift vouchers and prizes on the National Health Service under plans by the government’s medicine watchdog to encourage them to stay clean.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) will recommend the system of inducements, which could enable clinics to offer televisions and iPods as prizes, to tackle the burgeoning drugs problem…” (Sunday Times)
Why should drug addicts get any financial incentives to stop? If they don’t want to stop for other reasons, this will only keep them off the drugs for as long as the money keeps on coming in. This is totally wrong.
Supporters claim that the money spent of giving addicts iPods will be “recouped” through them making fewer demands of the NHS. Despite the fact that the money won’t be “recouped” but just not spent on it, they may be right. But that doesn’t support the idea that financial incentives will make addicts quit. Beyond the problems of cost, it is morally a bad thing to do. It is effectively rewarding people because they have broken the law and have now stopped. It’s like giving a burglar money because he hasn’t robbed your house this week - utterly absurd.
Those who don’t take drugs and get addicted are effectively being screwed over by this because they haven’t broken the law/got addicted beforehand. If these addicts want to get “clean” then they don’t need financial incentives to do so. if they can only stop tasking drugs in return for iPods and the like, as soon as they stop getting given them, or have what they want, then they will just revert to their old state, costing the NHS double. If addicts want to quit, they don’t need to be given money to do so. If they don’t want to quit, all the money in the world won’t make a difference.
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I don’t do drugs… but I would be happy to not ever do drugs for an ipod
Is it not much more likely they will sell the iPod or television for drug money? Of all the crazy dumb*** ideas of government this one has to be right up there toward the top of the list.
What a tremendously stupid idea.