Mr John Miller is quite right to suggest (Letters, 29 June) that
Australia should look overseas to see whether any other countries are
responding any better than we are to illicit drugs.

Drug-overdose deaths increased in Australia from 6 in 1964 to 737 in
1998. The number of people injecting drugs in Australia has been
doubling every 10 years for the last three decades, while 84 per cent
of Commonwealth and state government expenditure in response to
illicit drugs has gone to Customs, police, courts and prisons.

Does he really believe that we can arrest and imprison our way out of
this mess when we cannot even stop drugs entering our prisons?

And why should Australia look, as he recommends, to Sweden, where drug
use and drug overdose deaths are also increasing rapidly?

Drug use and drug-overdose deaths are both declining in Switzerland.
There were 419 such deaths in 1992 and only 181 in 1999. The community
in Switzerland strongly supports the national four-pillar approach,
which started a few years ago. This involves a balanced combination of
law enforcement, prevention, treatment and harm minimisation.

(Dr) ALEX WODAK,
President Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation
Darlinghurst, NSW