THE SCHEME to build new homes for East Lancashire drug addicts is inevitably controversial.

A reward for bad behaviour, some might say.

And there is the prospect of protest from residents in the areas where these houses may be located.

But, too frequently, the community makes the mistake of regarding all addicts as criminally-inclined, anti-social scum - when, more often, they are ordinary people who are victims of the evil pushers and dealers who are the real criminal scum.

What, then, of those who want to escape their clutches and the misery they impose on them and their families?

Do not those who are responsible enough to want to free themselves from the enslavement of addiction and the dealer vultures deserve help and encouragement?

Certainly, the proposal by the Inward House drugs charity for purpose-built homes for people who have completed detoxification is founded on a commonsense notion - that of preventing recovering addicts from going back to live near drug dealers and users and slipping back into addiction as a result.

And coupled with an associated scheme aimed at protecting vulnerable young people before they try drugs for the first time, this is a two-pronged initiative that fights the drugs menace with both realism and compassion.

It deserves the widespread support of the community, not its doubts.

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