Work together to break grip of drugs

Sir, - Thank you for your stories on the drug problem in Dundee (May 15). Although the picture was very disturbing, that is the point.

The issue is disturbing. I’m afraid, however, that the suggestion of shooting galleries, even if it were to work, is just a sticking plaster measure.

The problem is complex and needs a multidisciplinary approach.

Drug dealing should be much more severely punished, there needs to be an increase in drug rehab and, most of all, we need to ask why people are so desperate that they will take a drug which destroys their lives and often kills them.

Another story in The Courier indicates another source of the problem. We have now reached a stage where mental health workers are to be deployed in schools.

As the report points out, the major issue is that of dysfunctional families and broken relationships.

We need to ask why there is hopelessness and despair among so many in our community.

Dundee is a great city, but there are those for whom that is irrelevant.

I wonder if we are prepared to face up to what is happening among so many in our community, or we will we continue to gloss over the deeprooted problems in so many lives?

I don’t think that this is a problem which will be sorted by any one group or any one solution.

The police, the education system, social work, the health service, voluntary organisations and churches, families, and ordinary people caring for one another in the community all need to work together.

We can choose to avoid this issue, play the blame game, or make a superficial solution but surely what is needed is a new and radical approach from us all. Thank you to the Courier for at least raising the issue. Where do we go from here? David Robertson. St Peter’s Free Church, 4 St Peter Street, Dundee.

The shocking scene encountered in Dundee’s Bell Street car park last Saturday afternoon.