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Later today the National Drug Treatment Agency will release its latest figures. Unfortunately, they will demonstrate once again the futility of chasing after a problem, long after it is established. Prevention is better than cure.

For every pound spent on rehab, a few pence are spent on drug education and awareness, which would prevent young people getting into drug abuse. Massive amounts of money then have to go into rehabilitation, often to little or no effect. Yet the dominance of the rehabilitation fraternity within the anti-drug industry is such that billions of pounds continue to go into this area, rather than relatively small amounts of money which would have a much larger impact on young lives and slash the supply of those who ultimately end up as financially and socially expensive  abusers.

Education is cheaper and more effective than rehabilitation, particularly if – as in Nottingham – it is part of a coherent Early Intervention programme to give young people the social and emotional bedrock that is the best inoculation against the abuse: not only against the abuse of drugs, but also many of the other social problems of dysfunction including drink abuse, low educational attainment and low aspiration to work. There needs to be a complete reorientation: from chasing after a problem once it has become endemic, to one which gives equal emphasis to pre-empting problems by effectively developing a generation of children and young people who know how to make better choices.