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We should pay drug addicts to get sterilised

US charity Project Prevention has a radically simple solution to the problem of children born addicted to drugs: it pays addicts $300 each to either get permanently sterilised or go on long-term birth control. Having already worked with over 3,000 people in the States, founder Barbara Harris has now launched the programme in the UK. She’s already had her first British participant: the BBC reported that a 38-year-old heroin addict called John accepted £200 in return for having a vasectomy.

Fans of Harris’s approach, who include addicts grateful for her help, think of it as a pragmatic solution to a terrible social problem. Detractors have criticised it as unethical meddling in the lives of vulnerable people, with some critics even drawing comparisons between Harris’s approach and Nazi eugenics policies.

Drug addiction unarguably has a huge social cost, and the children of addicts are at greater risk of physical and mental health problems and abuse. They also have a higher chance of ending up in prison, or getting addicted to drugs themselves. Given the serious nature of the problem, are creative solutions necessary – and, if so, is Project Prevention’s blunt use of incentive the best way to be creative?