Letter: A way out of the drugs dilemma

Sir: How we gasped when Tony Blair gave Frank Field governmental blessing to "think the unthinkable" on welfare reform. The hard fact is that we simply cannot afford to continue with the present system - this is a forced move. For "unthinkable" read "no one prepared to say so in public until it's too late".

How long before the "unthinkable" means legalising currently banned drugs, which will surely happen, because you can't criminalise the vast and growing numbers of people who regularly take them and neither can we afford the rising cost of prohibition?

The rational, civilised thing to do now is to set up a Royal Commission to investigate the matter - let's have some "unthinkable" thinking now, while we still have some options.

ROBIN PRIOR

Ealing, Middlesex