Letters: Roadworks taking too long

I do not profess to being an expert in road repairs or maintenance.

I refer to the repairs of the Tarawera Rd culvert, just beyond Te Wairoa.

The repairs have been ongoing for the past seven months.

As a frequent user of this road I am flabbergasted the job has taken this long.

On many occasions a large number of "workers" are present - a large percentage of whom, in my observations, are supporting themselves to terra firma by leaning on a shovel.

If this has not been an instance of "overkill" I would like to know what is.

I presume the Roads Board are primary funders for all these hours, along with us as mere taxpayers.

Get real - this has been a fiasco and I would appreciate a response from someone in authority.

James Blakely
Rotorua

False viewpoint

While all viewpoints should be heard there is a false viewpoint which believes that because countless people have tried something before, it must therefore be good or right.

Many tried cigarettes during the world wars but by the 1970s doctors knew the link between cigarettes, lung disease and cancer. Should society still have to wait and see or take heed now?

This year the US surgeon general Dr Jerome Adams warned in a TV interview "The marijuana of 10 years ago was less than 5 per cent THC [tetrahdydrocannabinol, the product that makes you get high and causes addiction and other problems]. The new strains that are professionally grown are 10, 15, 20 per cent THC and when you vape them or dab them through new devices folks are getting 50, 60, 70 per cent THC delivered. I like to have a glass of wine once in a while but that does not mean I endorse a pint of grain alcohol."

It is naive to think that regulation would reduce the harm to individuals or society.

Northland has already recorded an increase in drug-related driving fatalities.

Colorado legalised marijuana in 2012 and consumption rose and is now 85 per cent higher than the national average.

D McPherson
Rotorua
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