THE bus shelters around the new Royal Blackburn Hospital are not places visitors would want too much time in. Why?

They are strewn with litter discarded by addicts who frequent them several times a day.

Visitors are lucky if they can shelter, never mind sit, without suffering the presence of addicts, participating in their noxious habits, to the discomfort and annoyance of others.

Their need for a regular fix' is all the more surprising when one discovers that they are all employed at the hospital.

You'd think they'd know better, when their jobs bring them into daily contact with hospital patients who are very ill, if not dying, from similar self-inflicted addictions.

A small, inanimate object, three inches long is the cause of this addiction. Its sole purpose is to turn he user into a junkie, totally dependent upon it.

The aim is to prematurely damage one's health, if not to kill, and yet people enjoy' such self destruction.

Yes, you've guessed it - it's the cigarette, or better described by one consultant oncologist I know at this same hospital as a cancer stick'. Still, we don't want to deny people their right to choice!

NOEL EKE, Pickering Fold, Blackburn.