COLUMNIST BRILLIANT ON DRUG STRATEGY OPINIONS

Editor, The Times:

I would like to congratulate Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson for his brilliant
column in the Times last Friday.

He sums it up, speaking about the four pillars of an overdue drug
strategy: "Prevention shows forethought, enforcement maintains order,
harm reduction displays commitment, treatment grants a second chance."

I have worked briefly in detox centres and rehab centres and I always
found the results on people's lives amazing.

Often the follow-up help and the halfway house spaces were too few or
non-existent and it became a "revolving door" problem.

To read in the paper that the harm reduction strategy encourages more
addiction, is absurd.

It is high time that the above drug strategy, based on the
community-based four pillars model, is implemented.

Jailing addicts who commit crimes, alone, just doesn't cut
it.

Victoria Inskip

Mission