THOSE crooks involved in the drugs trade - the pushers, those who 'cut' drugs and risk lives for bigger profits, foreign regimes who use the drugs trade to buy arms to oppress their people - must all be delighted with Jack Straw's decision to keep things as they are.

Disappointment will be felt by people who seek relief from suffering or who enjoy cannabis for pleasure and who, unlike alcoholics and nicotine addicts, harm no one.

Of course Straw should resign. He has nothing new to offer - only the failed and myopic policies of his dismal predecessors.

ALEC LEAVER, Stansfield Street, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.