Every week or so another story about drugs appears in the Press, as they have been doing with monotonous regularity for as long as I can remember. Yet nothing appears to change.

Dealers continue to sell drugs, people continue to take drugs, the Police continue to occasionally catch dealers, and the problem continues to escalate – costing the country a fortune in a losing battle.

Drugs are governed by the same economic rules of supply and demand that control any other commodity, whether it is chocolate biscuits or cat food.

No one forces anyone to eat chocolate biscuits, buy cat food or take drugs, so perhaps it is time to change the official attitude towards them.

If people want drugs they will find them inevitably through an illegal outlet inevitably connected to organised crime.

Perhaps it is time to kill two birds with one stone, firstly by legalising drugs – which will neutralise the criminal element – and, secondly, by allowing people who want to kill themselves with drugs to do so if they wish.

It is their decision.

Perhaps then the Government can stop playing cops and robbers with the drug problem, and really start to take some form of action to protect our young people from this scourge.

Brian M Leahy, Hanney Road, Steventon