TRAGEDIES BORN OF DRUG ADDICTION

Sir, Having read Sean Thomas's article ("Just another upper class junkie . .
. ", January 13) and, before that, the obituaries of Henrietta Moraes
(January 8) and the Marquess of Bristol (January 11), I feel that an
important point that was not emphasised enough is the misery and disruption
which a drug problem can impose on innocent bystanders.

I am writing to you as we await the funeral in a few days' time of my
beautiful and talented daughter. She was not, and never had been, a drug
addict, but her life was blighted by drugs to the extent that she ended it
at the third attempt.

Less than a year ago her partner, the father of her second child, died as a
result of injecting heroin. He had been a drug abuser in the past, but we
understand that his fatal experience was an isolated incident and that his
death resulted from a combination of alcohol and drugs. The police were
apparently unable to follow the trail to find where the drug had been
obtained.

If one accepts that current legislation takes the right approach, it seems
to me that there are only two ways by which the problem of drugs can be
alleviated.

First, the penalties for possessing prohibited drugs should be truly
draconian. Secondly, I am convinced that the educational system should
incorporate an extremely hard-hitting compulsory programme of anti-drug
education for pupils from an early age (see letters, January 6 and 14).

Our surviving children, now in their twenties, tell me that they were not
given any instruction or information about the dangers of drug-taking. I
sincerely hope that our grandchildren, two of whom my wife and I will now be
bringing up as our own children, will be taught with no holds barred.

Yours sincerely, ROGER JOHANSEN, The Cedars, Dark Lane, Ewyas Harold,
Herefordshire HR2 0EZ. johansen@saqnet.co.uk January 14.

Sir, I do not feel that heroin can any longer be categorised as a drug used
only amongst the upper class and un-employed, as inferred in the article of
January 13. It is now found everywhere, and none of us can dare be
complacent and think that it doesn't happen to "people like us". It does,
and has tragically to us, when we lost our own beloved son, aged 20, last
October.

We all have an obligation to help save these precious young lives against
the evils of heroin addiction, which is a desperately sad road for the
victims, their families and friends, and which can only end, if untreated,
in prison or death.

We should all be extending a helping hand to make the Church, teachers,
doctors and all in authority realise that every young life is very
vulnerable across all social aspects, and that it can happen anywhere to
anyone.

Yours sincerely, VICKY REMNANT, Slough Farm, Debden, Saffron Walden, Essex
CB11 3LF. January 14.