On TV, coming from the parent of one of the boys. I would probably say the same if one of my own was killed by drugs/drink/bad driving or whatever. Most rational observers would prefer grieving parents to be left alone but TV/radio/press organisations are not the most rational when headlines & deadlines beckon.

Today I witnessed unbelievable insensitive reporting on the BBC 6 O'clock News that made so angry I tried to telephone the BBC News hotline (permanently engaged) and eventually fired off an email, for what it is worth. It involved a photograph, supposedly of a serving policeman, headed "Mr.Plod" - the photograph they actually used was one of Ian Terry, the policeman shot & killed during a training exercise in June 2008.

Sorry if this diverts away from the topic of drugs but it refers to bad reporting of bad situations. Last week it was the "dog insurance tax" which has already been dropped after much sensational reporting of government policy on-the-hoof. Wait until the election really gets going.

that sounds like a Dr Who villain is fine by me.

Yer man did an excellent interview on PM last night in which I learned several interesting things, not least among which:

- alcohol kills one person per day in the UK.
- alcohol is a factor in most "drug deaths".

So if tomorrow a couple of kids decide to see if they can get off their tits by mainlining Toilet Duck, will we see the right-wing press railing against "this sick youth cult" and calling for the banning of bog cleaner? Yep, probably.

to the parents of the two boys but I am sure they will not be the only ones who lost loved ones yesterday to one thing or another.Politico's love to jump on the ban this ban that bandwagon,it provides them with the chance to look like they are on the side of the good guys.If we just rid society of Drugs,Video Nasties,Smoking,Drinking,Rock & Roll ect. then a new Eden will be ours.Simple answers to complex questions don't help they just muddy up the water.

Only about 200 deaths connected to ecstasy in 15 years. And of those a huge portion were because of the involvement of alcohol.

Meanwhile deaths directly from alcohol in 2008 were sitting around 9000. This doesn't include the deaths from violence or accident caused because alcohol was involved. I suspect the number would rise dramatically if it did. And an estimated 100,000 and more from smoking related illness every year.

I think the numbers speak for themselves really.

If you disconnect the alcohol excuse, is it a safe society that advocates young people popping pills? It's easy to say, oh well it's less dangerous than drinking alcohol, but in general the message it sends to other people is that it's okay to drop some kind of a substance and send your brain off in a different direction for a while. Unfortunately, we're not all alike, and whilst one person might do it once and enjoy it, but not do it again for a while, the next person might end up doing it more than is perhaps sensible; and the third person might end up doing it every other night for weeks or months on end. The amount of people I knew that used to do E on a Saturday night, then eventually ending up doing them on Wednesdays, Fridays, then Saturday evening right through until Sunday lunchtime was pretty substantial enough to act as a warning to others about a supposedly safe drug. Equally, we live in a society where people don't go into opium-den-like safe environments, but take drugs then drive, wander around the streets, and perhaps go and stick the chip-pan on. They also binge, and cave to peer pressure and overdo things. The use of alcohol which is often decried by comparison in the discussion we're currently having proves that: hence traffic cones in student bedrooms. So, should we open the floodgates to allow that kind of excessive, ill-informed caning to be legally achieved with other, potentially more powerful substances?

Trying to control the fashion for altering your brain chemistry so radically (albeit temporarily) isn't all about crushing people's individuality, or some kind of big brother state move to control people. It's also about protecting people from an activity that can have fatal consequences, but also incubate a lifestyle that can eventually lead to mental health issues. People don't always take drugs to have a good time, they also take drugs to switch off the hassles of the day. Again, compare drugs to alcohol and you see people having crappy days, then going and having a drink; movies illustrate people stressing about certain situations, then instinctively pouring themselves a stiff scotch or lighting a fag. Hassle and cure; problem and perceived solution.

Human beings are, unfortunately, hard-wired through the evolution of our brain to seek immediate cures to uncomfortable feelings, whether the activity is irrational or not. It's why people have problems with overeating, spending too much on credit cards, get addicted to sexual behaviour, or develop a gambling habit; they are using the natural chemicals these activities generate to cancel out and overshadow the uncomfortable feelings they have. Look at the problems that have begun to surface over the last few years amongst young men who liked a puff of weed. It now turns out that they were doing so during a time when their brains and maturity were developing, and now they're experiencing mental health issues because they can't cope with aspects of what it means to be a twenty-something. Mental health clinics around the country have suffered an influx of adolescent boys over the last decade, simply because a seemingly innocent bit of self-administered bedroom chemistry has impacted on their long-term mental and spiritual development. They have altered the way their body creates or handles chemicals created by stress or anxiety, and now they can't cope with the kinds of things other take for granted. Yet, ten years ago this very same discussion we're having here, about weed smoking being far less dangerous than alcohol, was being used to justify such things; counter-argue the law, etc.

Alcohol is (supposedly) a controlled substance. It's controlled by the fact that you can only drink one pint at a time, publicans are (supposedly) meant to monitor the amount people are drinking on their premises, and there's a (supposed) age limit on buying and consuming it. But we all know that's hokum, and that it's an industry that makes the rules up as it goes along. Equally, we know smoking is a bloody stupid thing to do, and anyone that smokes as much as Don or Betty Draper is dancing with the devil long-term. On top of that, we also know that eating a king-sized, deep-pan, stuffed crust pizza a night is not wise. But is their existence an excuse to go do cocaine, MDMA, LSD, speed or smoke strong weed? That's essentially using one wrong to justify another, and as the saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right. I could name at least one person for each of the drugs I've just mentioned, that used them and subsequently the situation went against them, and they did themselves long-term harm; in some cases irrevocable damage, never to return to the person (in physical or mental) health that they once were.

...between a substance being legally available and its consumption being actually *advocated*. Of course taking mephedrone is almost certainly a really bad idea, but it's not as if keeping it legal is the same as saying "sure thing, kids! Help yourselves! It's great!"

My point is not that kids should take drugs. They absolutely shouldn't - it's a stupid thing to do, and as you say, there is a worrying tendency for people to act as if pharmaceutical intervention, whether officially sanctioned (Prozac) or not (weed) is something to be undertaken lightly, like getting a haircut or something. However, the last few decades have seen more and more drugs banned, while the dealers get richer and the drugs get more and more available. Has banning cocaine done anything to slow its use? Well, who knows? We've little to compare that situation with. But the fact is, you can walk into any pub or club in the land and, if not actually score some coke, definitely find out where you CAN score some. It's not hard. Banning it hasn't led to me being unable to get my hands on it, if I chose.

Most illegal drugs are very, very bad for you. I have no doubt of that. But why should you be criminalised for risking your health in this one very specific way? There's a mountain of evidence that shows drug related crime to be a direct result of drug criminalisation - the banning of this horrible shit has made things worse.

I'm a bit on the chubby side since my kids were born. I'm trying to lose weight, with some success, but up until a few months ago I was eating too much crappy, fatty food. I don't recall anyone seriously proposing that my pizzas should be banned for the good of the nation.

Still disagree with you, to be honest. Just because drug dealers are fulfilling supply and demand, it doesn't mean it should be legalized. There are plenty of human activities that can be fulfilled through illegal means that I'm sure you wouldn't want to see legalized: dog-fighting, under-age prostitution, paid-for hits of a violent nature.

If drug taking is wrong when it's illegal, why will legalizing it make any difference? The only things that will have changed will be drug-dealers don't make the same profit, but it's already been suggested here that our government taxing/inadvertently advocating cigarettes and alcohol is bad, so where would the difference with legal, taxed coke be? There'll be the same sporadic families affected by an individual going and blowing all the housekeeping on legal cocaine, or getting out of control on it and doing some kind of harm to themselves or others; and inevitably people saying the government is now taxing misery of a coke nature.

And as for that pizza, they haven't been made illegal, but we know far more about the risks of excessive fat intake and poor diet than we did even ten years ago; and I doubt that you would support the argument that was raised by those two kids in the States that tried to sue McDonald's for making them fat, because they ate McD's every day. For me, I'd laugh a bit and shake my head, and say they were passing the blame for their own behavior. Now if people can be that naive and attempt to pass the blame for irresponsible behavior (educated, ill-educated or otherwise), then how would we get on when we legalize cocaine, speed, MDMA and LSD? What happens to the Syd Barretts of this world when they can go into McD's and buy a Royale with Psychedelic Cheese? Would Syd come back to full mental health because it was legal? Would the people that burnt a hole in their brain and suffer crushing depression through over-use of MDMA be fitter and healthier because it was legal? Or, like the person that binges on junk food, would they suffer that thing called consequence? Equally, would the young people that committed suicide because they didn't know they would react so negatively to smoking so much weed come back to life? And would the girl that got hooked on speed, and subsequently stopped washing properly, got a vaginal infection, had to have a hysterectomy and had to spend six-months in a wheel chair as a result, not have screwed things up?

Legislation has to account for everyone, and these are the people that had a weakness, so they have to be either the cases that justify protecting the naive from the consequences of flirting with powerful substances; or the exceptions that prove the rule. You can't protect people by limiting it, either. You're only supposed to be able to buy two packets of Nurofen in the supermarket, but gee whizz that's hardly difficult to get around, is it? Yet if someone committed suicide, or got addicted to them, the government would say, "well, we put measures in place to limit access to the pills." Equally, setting an age limit on alcohol has never done the job, either.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating The Man, but I just don't buy this legalize drugs, and let people have access to whatever they want. We have speed limits on the roads, but people still die in car accidents, and I don't think many people can excuse the loss of a kid that's bounced off the bonnet of a car that was speeding.

these lads also took methadone, which the press seems to have brushed over.

My point about the supply and demand of drug dealing was to suggest that just because it's sold, this doesn't mean it should be legalized. That, in of itself, is not a case for legalization, it's only a signpost that people want to take drugs.

My standpoint on it is, as a former recreational drug user, that, yes, there is fun to be had on them; however, there are very clear and obvious dangers, too; and it is a form of body-chemical roulette. Equally, few recovering heavy drug users will say they did the right thing by taking so many, and they wouldn't change certain parts of their relationship with drugs if they could (eg. Nick Kent in this month's mag). But the thing is, you can't make all the choices when it comes to intoxication; you just can't, that's nature - the drug will make certain choices for you (case in point drunk driving, which is something the intoxicated brain is calling for, regardless of the known dangers). Equally, the actual harm that drugs can cause - either through a one-off, unfortunate reaction; or prolonged use - is fundamentally a danger that, unless closely monitored cannot be guaranteed against to cause some kind of disability or even, in a worst case scenario, death.

Most of the posts here seem to be in agreement that alcohol is dangerous; most seem to think that alcohol is too dangerous to be something advocated and taxed by the government. Yet, because drugs are illegal, their inherent dangers are somehow being eclipsed by the argument about freedom of choice. Is the problem, therefore, that people simply don't like the idea that they're being told what to do? If this is the case, to me, there are parallels with the censorship of certain artworks - people aren't arguing for the value of, say, hardcore porn or whatever; they're simply arguing the right to do what they want. Yet, I honestly feel that people are overlooking the damage strong drug substances can, and do, cause, and the dreadful damage done by addiction. Instead, I get the whiff of counter-culture; the idea that drugs and the mythic principles of mind expansion are somehow greater in the pro's column, than the minuses of said dangers are on the negative side. Look what happened when AIDs and HIV was a major headline; some people enjoyed the risk of not wearing a condom, with a consequence being that some suffered the consequence. My point being that human beings are a bit mad, and we do need to try and impose some restrictions on ourselves, otherwise our egos could burn us like Icarus.

To me, as a recovering alcoholic that's also sat in rooms with recovering drug-addicts too, who have been to some dark places that can only be imagined, the realities of getting on the wrong side of substances that are without doubt more powerful than the human psyche would like to think; substances that speak directly to the subconscious within us all, and will encourage an undertow that can and will destroy lives, are just not worth the proverbial candle. Go speak to any of the former Vallium addicts that became crippled by something that was prescribed in all innocence by their doctor during the 60s and 70s. I don't wish to preach, but I think some people would be genuinely taken aback by the dark tales of these otherwise normal, quite lovely women (and it was generally women). One pensioner I knew, who'd become inadvertently hooked on Vallium given to her by her doctor, actually had the last rights read to her because they honestly thought she was a goner at one stage. Yet, to meet her, and in every other avenue of her life, she's strong, morally inspiring, and a great human being. I can't see what good legalizing such substances, and increasing the potential for such situations will do - other than satisfying peoples' belief that they're somehow being dominated and oppressed by the government - because the outcome will only accelerate: more people will involve themselves in their use, ergo more people will come off worse. Don't underestimate the power of personal delusion, because that's the thing that stops you seeing what your friends and family can observe.

Whether we agree or not, there is some prohibitive positives to making it hard to get hold of these things. If drug-taking and getting high was something that could achieve its own equilibrium within society, and not have a negative effect, why did we have to ban Tamazipan, cough mixtures with opiates, and they had to change the content of Nurofen? Look at the damage legal drugs in America cause; as a recovering addict of a similar substance, I can put my hand on my heart, and tell you - in my experience - people don't get addicted to one thing because they can't get another; they get addicted to something because they form a subconscious relationship with it, one that is run at the full strength of the person's brain. The will power that people say they should use to avoid addiction is actually the same thing that has addicted them in the first place. Also, there is a very high amount of people that are struggling with supposedly 'legal', prescribed pharmaceuticals in this country - what good will legalizing others do? Look what happened to Michael Jackson, access to whatever you want is a free pass to free-fall.

As a recovering alcoholic, I don't want alcohol banned, but I long for the time when its use evolves through education; and the only way said education can occur is through what many would term 'social engineering'. A process which I don't see, in this instance, as being about mind control, but about tutoring people on the dangers of certain practices. If you honestly believe that you could monitor drug taking on a legal basis, including the use of powerful substances like heroin, other opiates, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamine, speed and MDMA-like substances, I honestly think you're being overly optimistic. If we can't safely control the use of alcohol, how can we honestly expect to control other substances that offer exactly the same potential for addiction and abuse.

Equally, how can we put all our faith in the suggested payoff of legalizing drugs, then limiting the dangers by enforced limiting of intoxication strength? People would automatically resent it, we'd end up having a similar debate about why a governing body should be allowed to control HOW MUCH drug you're putting into your body. Inevitably, under-the-counter (read: illegal) processes and practices would spring up, facilitated by drug dealers (again) providing people with the ability to exceed said imposed limits. Young people, as they do when they go mad on booze during their teens, would want to take it as far as they can push it. And we're back at square one...

And to those that say, "F*ck off, it's my body I'll do what I want..." do such people think that when they walk past a drunken homeless person that has lost their home, their friends and their life, and is forced to live on the street come sun or snow? Believe me, that person has not made a lifestyle choice, he/she has become dominated by their addiction.

The reason why I said what I did re. the Hicks quote was not in defense of addicts, but to draw the example (albeit not very well, evidently) that there is a downside to being so gung-ho about doing what you want to your self with drugs or booze, and one of the potential consequences is that it could mean you lose everything and become one of those homeless, brain-damaged wrecks you see staggering around the high street.

Anyway, I think Hicks might not be the best advocate for doing what you want - he died a nasty death, with a direct line to the cigarettes he brandished as a counter-cultural, rebellious prop. Equally, when he knew he was really going to die, he didn't want to.

Just to start the cost-benefit analysis: in a recent paper a Harvard Economics Professor estimated the saving for the US government alone in legalizing all drugs of abuse. Although all you need is the executive summary, you can read the whole thing here:

www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/miron/files/budget%202010%20Final.pdf

The annual saving he is talking about is roughly in line with the TOTAL sum required to obtained a basket of global targets including "AIDS prevention, the provision of micronutrients to poor children, trade liberalization, and the control of malaria." See here:

http://www.amazon.com/Spend-Billion-World-Better-Place/dp/0521685710

Surely that's the lesson. And if you do, don't drink, and don't, just don't, then take an opiate. Not everyone is as well informed as we are sadly. It's the cocktail element that's the real killer here.