To: letters@independent.co.uk

Dear Sir,

Let's hope that "The Two Sides of Heroin, UK" (Feb 9th) signifies curtains for the worldwide program of brutal prohibition that creates both unlikely heroes and tragic martyrs. Prohibition, and the "War on Drugs", have failed. Worse, they are the primary factors in the misery and death that we see drugs wreaking in communities worldwide.

Compared with alcohol, many are biochemically relatively benign. Yet because of the illegal supply chain, few, except perhaps the affluent Sir Iain Blair attacks, can manage their habit safely. People take more risks to maximise the hit from a limited and uncertain supply. They get dependent on several substances because they have to take what's available from dealers whose only interest is in profit. It was not so in previous eras when predominantly upper class women were the addicts.

The history of prohibition is riddled with the institutional racism Iain Blair rightly condemns - opium in the US because of the moral panic that immigrant Chinese were using opium dens to seduce western women, cocaine because it supposedly turned "negroes" into “frenzied rapists”.

The supply will never be curtailed. If Afghanistan produced none (and it only takes a few acres to produce the entire UK supply), heroin is easily synthesised. It can be so concentrated that a month's individual supply could be concealed under a postage stamp. How can we stop that?

As with all prohibition, the very criminalisation makes it somehow more enticing. Where would be the cachet in something you could buy in measured, safe doses at the newsagent, chemist or over the bar? Humans have used these natural based substances since the dawn of time for medical, recreational and even religious uses. In the past they have actually contributed to social and community cohesion. The death and destruction they wreak now is solely down to this culture of prohibition. If the law kills (let alone the social costs in crime, punishment and rehabilitation) it is an immoral law, and we are all complicit in those deaths.

Sincerely,

Jock Coats