SIR, Durham Chief Constable Mike Barton has rightly called (the Press and Journal, September 30) for the decriminalisation of all narcotics, including heroin and cocaine, and for problems to be dealt with in clinics, not the courts.

Mr Barton is not the first senior policeman to criticise Richard Nixon's decision to use the failed methods of prohibition to tackle the problem of recreational drug use.

In 2010, Tim Hollis, chief constable of Humberside, said the war on drugs had clearly been lost and the only group to benefit from the present setup was organised crime.

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