Sober ideas needed to drag addicts from narcotics ditch

Based on an article in The Economist, last year PointBlank editorialised the need to take the "least bad option" of legalising and regulating narcotics trade and use (The sober truth is we can’t have a drugs-free world, March 24).

We though it would be of more benefit to treat addiction more like a public health issue and less a law and order one. After all, little had changed since a special session of the UN General Assembly declared in 1998 that there would be a drugs-free world in 2008. Our suggestion stirred up plenty of bile. Memorably, a caller accused this column of encouraging "this vilest of vices".