IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO SMOKE

SIR Has any research been carried out to establish whether there is a
correlation between the success of the anti-smoking campaign and the huge
increase in the use of hard drugs, bearing in mind that while the price of
cigarettes has soared, the cost of drugs such as heroin and ecstasy is said
to be relatively cheap?

Cigarettes have been branded as causing lung cancer but, again, heavy
smokers do not invariably fall victim to this disease (and may anyway be
predisposed to it), while one may die of lung cancer even though not a
single cigarette has ever touched one's lips. Yet one ecstasy tablet can
kill.

Much of the dramatic rise in violent crime is blamed on drug addiction. Few
60-a-day smokers have ever been blamed per se for mugging old ladies or for
shooting tobacconists in the course of a theft. As Dr Robert Leeming
reminded us in his excellent letter (May 25) on the Prime Minister's target
to cut cancer deaths by 20 per cent, we must all die of something. But
somehow this seems not to be taken into account. Why not?

PAM GUIVER Brentwood, Essex