Letter: No excuses for drug users, whoever they are

Sir: James Humphreys ("The cost to society is so great it makes me dizzy", 7 August) appears to believe that his taking his turn to collect drugs for his friends is purely a matter between him and them. They are, after all, "adults", as he informs us. The point is, of course, that his opinion of the arrangement is completely irrelevant. He was doing something which he knew was illegal, and deserved the consequences.

There are indeed many people in prison who should not be, and the system should be so administered that petty and young offenders are not condemned by association with career criminals to a life of crime. Humphreys says that he is dizzied by the cost to society of imprisonment, but does not seem to acknowledge that, as a representative of the best-educated people in that society, it is his duty to contribute to its improvement. Instead he embraces the habits of a criminal.

Well-educated people who, rather than regret crimes committed out of self-indulgence rather than anything resembling need or pressure, say that the system is wrong, deserved the excesses of the last Home Secretary, whose exit from office is otherwise heartily to be welcomed.

C J T SHEPPARD

Southampton

Sir: Those who lobby against the legalisation of soft drugs try to justify criminalising something no less dangerous than nicotine or alcohol.

The hypocrisy of this situation is infuriating. James Humphreys may well have been prosecuted, convicted, or even sentenced by somebody who enjoys occasional drug use. The only difference between Mr Humphreys and these respectable citizens is that his drug of choice is considered illegal.

ALEC McEACHRAN

Lichfield, Staffordshire

Sir: Perhaps James Humphreys has had time to reflect on the fact that, although he has never directly harmed another person, by buying illegal drugs he fuelled the fire of warfare between rival drug dealers. His money might well have supplied them with the money to purchase weapons and given them the ability to make the lives of innocent people thoroughly miserable.

Can he categorically state that the dealer he bought from did not ever sell to under-18s and is not connected, in any way, to those who protect their trade with violence?

KAREN DIMMOCK

Stourbridge,

West Midlands