If we were winning the war on drugs, Peter Maresch (Letters, December 30), supply on the streets would be diminishing, prices would be increasing, and drug-trading millionaire criminals would be seeking other occupations. The evidence clearly suggests that this is not the case. Those advocating a fresh approach, such as Dr Alex Wodak (Letters, December 29), a world expert in this field, are certainly not ignoring the plight of those who have succumbed to drug addiction; far from it. There is the model of a society that has both decriminalised drugs and concurrently enhanced its treatment of drug victims without any significant increase in illicit drug use. [continues 156 words]
True Confessions: Limbaugh Built an Army of Admirers With His Hard-Right Rants. but Off-Air, He Was a Lonely Man Who May Have Broken the Law to Feed His Addiction. The Real Rush. Rush Limbaugh has always had far more followers than friends. Bombastic and clowning on air, shy and bumptious off it, Limbaugh could count on 20 million "Dittoheads" and talk-radio fans to tune in five days a week. But it's hard to find many people who really know him. He was a lonely object of mass adulation, socially ill at ease, at least occasionally depressed and, for the past several years, living in a private hell of pain and compulsion. [continues 1598 words]
Piers Akerman may have missed something in his analysis of the effects of the heroin shortage. To quote Assistant Commissioner Clive Small: "Most heroin dependents are polydrug users.'' Consequently their immediate response is to seek another drug, such as alcohol, speed, an amphetamine or benzodiazepine, the latter often obtained by doctor-shopping. The side or indirect consequences of using these drugs can be more anti-social than the consequences of using heroin. The US provides case histories of authorities' drug campaigns having unintended effects. In the 1970s, successful crackdowns on heroin opened the way for the introduction of cocaine and crack cocaine. In Vietnam, a crackdown on cannabis use caused soldiers to switch to heroin; both were available but heroin was more easily concealed. These examples are all documented. Piers Akerman's depiction of dependent users' parents as indulgent is a gratuitous and despicable use of his position as a columnist. Evan Thomas, West Pennant Hills [end]
