HOW TO DEAL WITH DRUGS

You highlight (Fourfold rise in drug offenders, August 18) the need for a
serious debate on drugs and crime. Thirty years of prohibition and
increased sentences in the courts have failed to prevent the widespread use
of illicit drugs.

It is time we thought the unthinkable: the legalisation not merely of
cannabis but of all drugs. I do not think this would lead to wider
drug-taking. Drugs are already readily available to those who want them and
those who take them do not do so because they are illegal.

In any event, we have to consider the advantages of legalisation. First the
thriving black market, which customs and the police are unable to contain,
would be wiped out. Second, legal drugs would be subject to taxation, just
like alcohol and tobacco. Third, the massive expenditure on fighting a
losing war against the drug trade would be saved. So too would the huge
expenditure in court costs against users.

Most beneficial of all would be the drop in serious crime that would
accompany legalisation. Those who needed drugs would not need to steal,
burgle or rob to get them. Addicts would not need to sell drugs to support
their habit.

The savings in costs and the added revenue would more than pay for the
necessary increase in spending on programmes to get addicts off drugs if
they wanted to. As a society we ought to be a little more grown up in our
approach to one of the major problems currently facing us.
Mark George
London