Your feature ``Making peace with drugs'' (ODT, 8.10.16) featuring drug campaigner Tuari Potiki makes an excellent contribution to the debate on where to from here. My view is that a further step is needed, from criminal issue, to health issue, to social issue. Such a change would focus the debate on where it needs to be, that is, on the ``why'' of drug use/abuse? My experience as a student, a parent and a lawyer is that people use recreational drugs to fulfil a need. Echoing the words of Tuari Potiki to the UN: ''If there is to be a war ... it should be a war on poverty, on disparity, ondispossession ... ''

Source: Otago Daily Times October 14, 2016 17:15 UTC