Decriminalise drugs

YOUR excellent editorial (New drugs strategy is crucial, Irish Examiner, Sept 30) closes with “we must face up to the reality that a new strategy is drastically needed”.

This writer has advocated for 37 years that the answer to the failed “war on drugs” is to start the debate across Ireland on the need to decriminalise all drugs. More than 9,000 people have been murdered on the streets of Mexico over the past 15 months (more than the combined total of US troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past eight years) – all related to controlling the illegal drug trade in that country. We must learn from those countries that are being torn apart by the international drug cartels.

Vincent J Lavery