Sir, Professor Peter Fellgett (letter, March 31) points out that
alcohol was very much linked with crime in the 1920s in the US until
it was decriminalised. The Police Foundation report on drug abuse does
not recognise that the drugs scene has now reached the "speakeasy"
phase of prohibition, when alcohol was freely available yet illegal.
Proposing unspecified tougher action against dealers while signalling
less action against their customers is unjust and irrational.

I believe that in the short term the criminal justice system should
fight the speakeasy culture. In prohibition it is just to require at
least a statutory fixed minimum fine for everyone in possession of
illegal drugs, with a rising scale for quantity and repeat offences.
It is the passing of drugs to friends and workmates that gets people
started on drugs, and there must be no distinction between that and
trafficking.

We do need a new strategy, but it is too soon to set up a royal
commission on illegal drugs, because the Government does not yet have
the political nerve to give it the terms of reference it would need to
challenge prohibition and chart a course though the international
treaties that tie us into it.

Yours sincerely, Brian Galipeau, Old Barbican Cottage, Barbican Hill,
East Looe, Cornwall PL13 1DZ. March 31