LAW SHOULD OFFER SALVATION TO ADDICTS

PIERS Akerman (Daily Telegraph, May 6) is right to encourage people to
uphold the law.

The law is supposed to protect people, including the young. And the law is
made by man with that intention.

Uowever man makes mistakes. The law concerning consumption of drugs is a
mistake because it causes availability of drugs to flourish, corruption of
our police and legal system, and destroys young lives.

We should discourage drug use, but not necessarily by making it an illegal
activity. Certainly we should continue to prosecute those who make large
profits from trafficking.

We must, however, protect and assist young people who become addicted. The
aim should be to help these addicts regain a healthier and productive
lifestyle.

To do this they need treatment, not incarceration. They also need to be
alive.

In some countries it is the law that women are stoned to death for
adultery - does that make the law right?

BRONWYN BARNARD Kaleen, ACT

ALCOHOL and tobacco are the two biggest killers of Australians. I wonder how
deserted the moral high grounds would be if they were both made illegal and
people were forced to seek their poison on the black market in a situation
similar to Prohibition in America in the 1920s.

I firmly believe it is an individual's right to take whatever substance
he/she wishes as long as it has no direct effect on anybody else.

It is time for decriminalisation.

All we achieve with prohibition is to line the pockets of the drug dealers
and to force desperate users into crime.

DAVID BOWE Kellyville