HAVE WE GOT THE BALANCE RIGHT YET?

Your magazine on drugs (Drugs Uncovered, last week) was excellent, but you
missed an important part of the drugs debate - prison. From 1996-2000, the
British taxpayer paid UKP36 million for additional sentences given to
prisoners who tested positive for drugs. According to the Howard League for
Penal Reform, most positive results were for cannabis. One can only imagine
the pain of prisoners given a prison sentence as punishment for cannabis
possession when, on the other side of the wall, smoking a joint is all but
legal.

Steve Taylor, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) welcomes the
development of a mature discussion about drugs. But let us not get
distracted. Regardless of whether certain drugs are reclassified or not,
people will still use drugs - and some will develop significant problems
that impact on the users themselves, their friends and families, and the
wider community. The most effective and efficient way of dealing with this
is through treatment. The Government has recognised this. Funding for drug
treatment in England has increased by 35 per cent this year alone and, for
the first time, a national agency has been established to improve
treatment. The NTA aims to at least double the number of people in
treatment - from 100,000 in 1998 to 200,000 in 2008.

This summer, we will launch a framework for care that emphasises the need
to co-ordinate treatment with housing, employment and other services.

The NTA is also launching major campaigns to: develop and recruit more drug
treatment workers; reduce waiting times; and increase services for
under-represented groups. But there is no point in having more treatment if
it is not effective. The NTA will monitor services, co-ordinate research
and share information on what works with treatment providers.

Paul Hayes Chief Executive, National Treatment Agency

You say in your leader last week '...medical evidence and experience alike
are united in the view that heroin and crack cocaine have powerful
addictive qualities and are physically and mentally destructive'. While
both are highly addictive, the physical and mental destructiveness of
pharmaceutically pure heroin is doubtful, though the additives the
suppliers include have certainly claimed a number of casualties. It appears
people can live productive if somewhat constipated lives on pure smack.

Adrian Smith, St Leonards-on-Sea, E. Sussex

There's a class of drugs that results in far more deaths than heroin: Home
Office figures show they led to 3,433 deaths as opposed to 265 for heroin,
morphine and opiates combined. Withdrawal is far longer, and often
considered harder. Yet you don't even mention them. These drugs are
tranquillisers.

Teresa Williams, Bristol