WE all know that drugs and crime are inextricably linked. Addicts will do almost anything to get the money to fund their habit and it is believed almost 70 per cent of all crime in the county is caused by the need to satisfy this craving.

When offenders are caught, society rightly demands that they must be punished. But time in prison alone usually fails to break drug habits.

A staggering 80 per cent of offenders return to crime and that includes those on the government's own programme aimed at weaning them off drugs which was only finished by 28 per cent of 18,400 prisoners released last year.

Whether that dismal success rate is because illicit drugs are still available to people inside jail or offenders do not have the desire or will power to use the prison experience to rid themselves of addiction, is not clear.

But what is clear is that the programme pioneered by East Lancashire's own THOMAS organisation IS working.

Prisoners from Lancaster Castle are actually driven to THOMAS's door on the day their sentences finish to begin an intensive 12-week course of therapy.

What is needed now is for real money to be invested in spreading these courses throughout the country. The figures show it will be money well spent in producing lasting cuts in crime.