Sir, How do you steer the young clear of drugs? Lorraine Wilson asked in her column on Thursday. She suggests “wider education” and “harsher penalties for all those in the supply chain”. The trouble is the authorities are not nearly serious enough in their approach to the drug trade.
Lorraine is right much harsher penalties are essential; our courts are far too lenient both with drug-users and drug-traffickers. And the policy of placing heroin-users on methadone for ever more has not worked. A completely new approach is needed, with persistent offenders consigned to special secure units to stay there until they are dried out.
If they return to drug-taking, they should be returned to the units.
Meanwhile, access to illegal drugs should be made far more difficult. Drug traffickers should be swept off our streets and out of our council estates. More importantly, there should be a zero tolerance attitude towards pub and club-owners on whose premises drugs are taken or sold. A heavy fine and warning for a first offence, even more swingeing penalties for a second and closure of the premises for a third.
Such measures would go a long way to making our society safe from drugs for youngsters from all sections of society. It would no longer be a giggle to experiment with drugs as it is now in a night club or pub.
The disgrace of an almost certain appearance in court for a drug offence would deter all but the most reckless teenagers.
School campaigns are necessary, but they have not stopped the spread of drug usage in the young. We need to clamp down so hard that the temptation is removed altogether. We might also take another look at the lax licensing laws which encourage our young people to turn night into day as they drink and drug themselves into oblivion.
George K McMillan. 5 Mount Tabor Avenue, Perth.
Prince should steer clear of these issues
Sir, I was amused to hear Prince Charles, a non-scientist with a lower second degree in arts, refer to scientists like me who have doubts about his global warming as “headless chickens”.
He is, of course, a national treasure and has made many such hilarious claims in the past, but the irony is that his alarmism is the mirror image of the scepticism he attacks.
His accusation of vested interest lies uneasily beside the huge profits the Crown Estates make from the offshore windfarms that anger so many of his future subjects.
These costly Heath-Robinson devices trap increasing numbers in fuel poverty and their fate is more important than what may or may not happen 100 years down the line.
The Queen sensibly steers clear of such contentious issues and as the only human being with a carbon footprint so vast it can be seen from outer space, so should he.
Dr John Cameron. 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.
Education is welcomed
Sir, The Rev David Robertson, commenting on the Humanist Society of Scotland’s call for Religious Observance to be renamed to Time for Reflection, said: “The Humanist Society is dedicated to the abolition of religion from society.”
That is not true. The Humanist Society of Scotland is asking for schools to be a place of learning and education and that school gatherings should be inclusive and not favour one particular religion over another.
The change in the name would help achieve this. What parents choose to teach their children at home about religion is entirely up to them. The Humanist Society of Scotland has no wish to change that.
Religious observance is, by its very nature, confessional, exclusive and pertains to a particular belief system. Its place is in a church, mosque, temple or synagogue and not in schools.
What the Humanist Society of Scotland does welcome is religious education where children learn about different faiths and beliefs they will almost certainly encounter in the world.
Andrew Wilson. Media Officer, Humanist Society Scotland, Dundee and Tayside Group.
Should have known better
Sir, Your editorial, Ya Boo sucks not the way forward (February 4), attempts to be even-handed in the Twitter-fuelled spat between Peter Wishart MP and some pupils of Strathallan School.
Might I suggest that, from all accounts, Mr Wishart was the initial aggressor in this war of words. While the language used by the Strathallan pupils is regrettable, they are immature young persons while Mr Wishart is a mature 50-something man who has been a member of parliament for 13 years.
He is the one who really should know better.
Robert Cairns. Eastergate Cottage, Harrietfield, Perthshire.