DON'T LEGALISE DRUGS - TOO LATE FOR TOBACCO, ALCOHOL

Can we finally put to rest Mitchell Beston's concept that two wrongs
make a right (Letters, July 15). The serious health risks of tobacco
and alcohol were not known to governments, the medical profession and
taxation authorities until hundreds of years after they became
socially acceptable and ingrained in our society. No matter how we
flail against it, it is too late to ban those products. The lesson is
to avoid making cannabis, heroin, cocaine and other drugs socially
acceptable as a first step to legalisation, but we do not seem to have
learnt it yet.

Collis Parrett,
Kingston, ACT