Letters to the editor: Crack down on illegal drug users, errant youths and climate change

Methamphetamine being smoked in a glass pipe. Photo / NZME

Jo Raphael's editorial 'Drug bosses now paying for their own vile crimes' (Opinion, March 26) is well written but, in my view, she misses an important part of the drug scene.

There will be a lot of lesser participants in the drug trade who will simply step up into the shoes of those locked up.

Another point is that in the drug-affected communities most people will know who among their fellow citizens are involved in some way in the drug trade, including who the consumers are.

The trade will stay forever whilst the consumers are there.

Yet the modern thinking is to endeavour to treat the consumers as victims who need medical attention, which in most cases will be unwanted.

Our society needs to crack down hard on all illegal drug consumers but at the same time give every assistance to those who on their own initiative wish to reform.

We should apply the same philosophy to those who consume legal drugs to excess, the principal one being alcohol.

Bill Capamagian
Tauranga

Police should show presence

It is with great concern that I read about a serious assault at the Willow St bus interchange with seemingly little or nothing done to stop this assault.

The police station is some 300m along the road.

Police should drive along Willow St and show some presence, and take these youths home to their parents or arrest them.

How is the council going to protect the proposed $349m-plus refreshed civic precinct from out-of-control, unruly people who frequent this area now?

The artist impressions I have seen show only families enjoying the open spaces.

Grahame Benvie
Matua

Act now as sea levels rise

We hear from research scientists that sea level rise could hit parts of New Zealand twice as quickly as expected due to the movement of tectonic plates.

Basically, as the land goes up and down, which we know it does, the sea level rise due to climate change has a much bigger and more alarming effect than initially thought.

So, for example, hundred-year floods could be annual in places.

What does this mean for the Bay of Plenty? Two things – action to reduce climate change and building climate change resilience should be front and centre of everything we do. No greenwashing, no procrastination, acting now.

This could not be spelled out any bolder for us.

Kat Macmillan
Tauranga

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