Lack of appetite to tackle drugs epidemic

Madam, – At last someone has had the honesty to call the scale of drug addiction and deaths in Britain, and Dundee in particular, an “epidemic”.

Perhaps this will help mould the mindset of the politicians, commissions and forums who go through the public ritual of breastbeating over the victims of drugs but who have yet to come up with any practical proposals to eradicate the source of the epidemic, concentrating instead on providing facilities for the addicts.

During an epidemic the full resources of a nation, including the military, are mobilised.

The victims are nursed and cared for, but major efforts are put into tracking down and identifying the source, which is then eradicated.

If the political will is there, the drug producing areas of the world can be defoliated and the suppliers of drugs removed from circulation permanently.

However, I don’t hold out much hope of this happening as the social elite and ruling classes are just as addicted as the poor, only, instead of shooting up in a “closie”, their poison of choice is served up in a bowl at a dinner party in the leafy suburbs along with the foie gras.

Their vice is not addictive but “recreational”, and until they admit that they too have a problem they are unlikely to be in favour of taking practical action to address it.

The reason addiction is more prevalent and obvious among the poor is that there are more of them.

In this era of surveys and referendums, why not ask the parents and relatives of addicts living and dead what they think should be done to prevent a new generation of young people becoming addicted to drugs?

George Dobbie.

51 Airlie Street, Alyth.