WAKE UP TO HEROIN

Sir: Your series of reports on heroin coincides
with me coming across the stuff in England for the
first time. It was in London, a kid of maybe 18 or
so, silver foil and "brown" in one hand,
dragon-chasing tube in the other.

He seemed to have heard it was addictive, but he wasn't like that and
wasn't going to get messed up himself, was he?

This kid has had anti-drug lessons in school and has lived under the
Government's war on drugs all his life, yet he knew nothing. We know
from the Drug Action Teams the present strategy has had almost no impact.

It is time to accept the need for proper control and regulation. It's
time for legalisation, particularly of such an established and
accepted substance as cannabis.

But even heroin, if it's legal and pure, as Mike Goodman from Release
said in your columns (12 May), doesn't kill and legally maintained
addicts can live to a "ripe old age". The drug war is the cause of the
problems, and while we follow some pseudo-moralistic crusade toward
the impossible dream of a "drug-free" society, we are putting our
young people at enormous risk.

My young acquaintance talked to me for some time, eventually throwing
the stuff away. The drug war didn't help him one bit; a friendly chat
did.

DEREK WILLIAMS
Norwich
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Sir: Alcoholism kills many more users than heroin.
It destroys more lives, careers and families. But
the social consequences in terms of crime and
injury to strangers are less .

How can a society that tolerates alcohol not treat heroin in a similar
way? The controlled state supply of heroin to those who wish to use it
is an obvious way forward. License suppliers. Make sure the product is
"clean". Supply it through regulated buildings. It's been done with
pubs. Why not for heroin users?

The profits from a state regulated supply of hard drugs could pay for
rehabilitation for those who wish to get off the habit. Instead of
fighting the problem through the law, why not address the causes and
the cures?

T R NAYLOR
Cuddington,
Cheshire