3 LTE: PROBLEMS OF KEEPING UP DRUGS POLICY

Tom Utley may feel that it does not make sense to jail drug dealers
(article, March 29), but in my experience the law can play a very
useful role in helping drug addicts to quit a terrible and destructive
habit. When I was researching a book on heroin addiction last year, I
met and interviewed recovering addicts who said that "being busted by
the police" proved a real turning point in getting clean.

Young people who had some real prospects in life were thoroughly
rattled by the idea of having to appear in court and acquire a
criminal record. Some of these users would have been multi-addicted to
a variety of opiates, including cannabis - and sometimes alcohol, too,
by the way. But the spectre of law, when it became a reality in their
lives, did prove a deterrent - and an incentive to get their lives
together. The comparison between opiates and alcohol can be a bit off
the point. Alcoholism can do a lot of damage, but we have had 5,000
years of being acculturated to the stuff, and 93 per cent of people
who use alcohol do so without developing into alcoholics. Whereas
about 25 per cent of those who use opiates become addicted. Reading
through the coroners' reports of drug and alcohol-related deaths, it
was poignant to observe that most of those who died from alcohol abuse
were old boozers in their sixties and seventies, whereas most of those
who died from opiates were young people in their twenties and thirties.

A fair number of male suicides, which are now at such alarming levels,
are actually opiate-related deaths.

MARY KENNY
London SW1

Both alcohol and tobacco are addictive drugs that have been
responsible for many premature deaths and much suffering over hundreds
of years. During this time, a massive global industry has emerged from
the legal manufacture, sale and distribution of these drugs, the
destruction of which would yield severe social and economic
consequences throughout the world. Thus, the reversal of legalisation
of alcohol and tobacco would today be impractical, if not impossible.
Do we really wish to augment this legacy to future generations by
advocating the creation of further "soft drug" industries which
control the economy?

GAR NING
Southport, Lancs

One disadvantage of the legalisation of drugs would surely be that the
non-user would suffer even more from the nauseating smell that arises
from bank notes and library books.

JOHN WORTH
Melksham, Wilts