Prevention the best policy to tackle drugs menace

THE drugs problem is a cancer eating away at the very heart of our society and destroying the lives of thousands of our young people.

Those who push drugs on them are the greatest scourge in our communities and deserve nothing but the appropriate punishment to meet the crimes they are committing against society. They are destroying the lives of many of our young people.

There is a close correlation between drug use and crime. The fact that heroin users in this country are three times more likely than non-users to have been arrested for robbery or assault speaks volumes. While rehabilitation clinics and centres for recovering addicts, etc, have a vital role to play, greater emphasis must be placed on preventive measures. Surely it would be far more effective to prevent young people becoming hooked on drugs rather than having to treat them afterwards with all the associated problems such as drug-related crime.