C. LANGFORD (Letters, 6/8) is jealous that people addicted to heroin
may receive free heroin while he or she has to pay for cigarettes.

C. Langford is privileged to have become addicted to a legal ding. He
or she is able to buy this drug without fear of being arrested or
treated like an outcast.

The quality and price of this addictive drug are known and controlled.
The health warnings are on the pack. Help with addiction is
immediately available when needed, without prejudice or punishment.

All this for a drug which is intrinsically the most addictive and
harmful of drugs.

Illegal drugs like heroin, which are flooding our streets, do not have
such controls. Its users are treated as criminals and punished, often
severely. When addicts want treatment, they are put on long waiting
lists and often treated with contempt.

People like C. Langford should take the matter of illegal drugs in our
society more seriously. How would it be if C. Langford could not get
hold of nicotine when he or she needed it?

These flippant responses are ignorant and do not address the
seriousness of a problem that causes death and tragedy, crime and
corruption of immense proportions throughout our society.

Solutions such as a trial of prescription heroin to those addicted,
which incidentally would not be free, could reduce some of these
horrific problems. It is certainly worth a trial.

M. McConnell,
Higgins, ACT.