Madam, - As someone who has, in a sense, been on the receiving end of dozens of gangland shootings, I must take issue with your paper's otherwise sensible Editorial about the threats posed by drugs criminals (December 13th).
This recommended that, "as in Britain, a less serious view should be taken of cannabis". But it is precisely that conventional wisdom - that cannabis is practically medicinal - which is at the root of the slaughter on our streets. The importation of cannabis remains the cornerstone of the drugs trade. And turning a collective blind eye to the "harmless" use of cannabis by so many youngsters (including murderous gangsters, psychiatric outpatients and drivers on the mortuary slab) has contributed hugely to the current carnage. Why not recognise when we have been historically mistaken - just as in Britain, where the legal downgrading of cannabis seems likely to be reversed - and begin to acknowledge the subtle but substantial physical, psychological and social harm caused by the drug?
While cocaine may have tipped us into the abyss, it was undoubtedly cannabis that lured us to its edge.
- Yours, etc,
Dr CHRIS LUKE, Cork University Hospital, Cork.