Focus on self-destructive behaviour rather than on illegal drug abuse

The vexed issue of drug abuse raises complex questions.

I applaud the heartfelt appeal by a “simple emergency room doctor”, David Caldicott (“Stop sacrificing young lives at an altar of drug dogma”, 12/12), in calling for a different approach to drug issues.

But effective solutions require adequate understanding of the nature of any problem. Caldicott unwittingly offers a clue in writing that his “mandate comes from patients, and those determined to become them”.

In this he hints at the drive or compulsion toward drug and alcohol use by individuals whose use of drugs and alcohol goes beyond the ordinary and becomes risky to their health and life.

In the 1970s, I was co-ordinator of an alcohol and drug service in NSW, and became convinced that the psychological problems underlying substance abuse — often, if not always, including family dynamics — should be adequately understood by policy developers.

We should accept that thinking about compulsions to self-destructive behaviour will throw more light on the problem than obsessive focus on the drugs themselves.

Ron Spielman, Paddington, NSW

It must be wonderful to be an acolyte of pill testing when one can ignore the downside of effectively sanctioning illicit drug taking. Who is going to accept responsibility for clearing a mess of mind altering chemicals for safe consumption when there is no evidence of quality control in the compilation of these drugs?

Legal drugs go through rigorous quality assurance, testing and sampling to ensure that the contents of the dose meet specifications and side-effects are carefully outlined. What are the comparable specifications for illicit drugs? Of course there are none.

The act of community sanctioned drug testing to prevent self harm would effectively legalise these concoctions. Even warning signs on the packets on the risk of injury and death seems to have no effect on smokers. Who will bear the responsibility of a false negative?

Despite the heart-rending appeals of David Caldicott, the quicker we make possession of these illegal drugs a criminal offence subject to incarceration for drug pushers, the problem will not go away.

Greg Angelo, Balwyn North, Vic

Wonder of banking lost

For a snapshot of the woes that is banking in Australia, I suggest people sally forth to the distinguished edifice that is Westpac’s branch in George Street, Sydney.

You’ll enter a lofty and ecclesiastical presence, still pregnant with dignity and esteem, while 12 empty teller booths drift by, the ghosts of things past hinting at a once venerated industry.

All too soon, this wonderful room becomes a waiting room and 12 worthy disciples have dwindled unaccountably to two hapless operatives faced with lengthy queues of shuffling victims, faces set to endure the misery that is banking, 2018 style. Tennyson once spoke of how dull it was to pause, to make an end — banks would rather you just waited in their gulags of mediocrity.

Paul Grindrod, Sydney, NSW

Lending criteria

It is now clear that the banks have wound back their lending criteria so far in response to criticism at the royal commission that it is becoming too hard for perfectly well-qualified applicants to get a mortgage.

And this entirely unintended consequence does, indeed, have the potential to derail the economy.

A general loss of confidence from an over-reactive credit squeeze won’t just hurt the property market, it will spill over into an already jittery stock market, and hurt people’s savings significantly, through the effect on superannuation.

Enough is enough. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and the government must act now.

Stephen Yolland, Templestowe, Vic