The drug rules
“The drug rules in Wellington” my arse.  Your piece about drugs is just the sort of soft thinking which makes me mad.
Singapore has it: Drug dealers are hung, and drug users whipped nastily and chucked in jail.
We don’t need drugs.  Let’s do that here.
M Haslam , Plimmerton.

Drug rules
I will comment on ‘The drug rules in Wellington’ article.
Marijuana is one of the least toxic drugs known to modern medicine. True, it can exacerbate some kinds of mental illness as other drugs can, but to compensate it has a wide variety of useful medical applications.
There is no evidence that marijuana has any overall deleterious effect on performance in education and sport.
The drug laws make a mockery of an essential principle of a free society, that those who do no harm to others should not be harmed by others and particularly not by the state. When all drugs were legal, New Zealand was not destroyed by drugs.
Prohibition does not work but leads to burgeoning crime with high costs of enforcement. A legal market in marijuana, with users and dealers licensed, would be a big improvement on the present prohibition. The enormous monetary savings from ending prohibition would mean much reduced taxation for all of us. Ending prohibition is a much better choice than continuing with it!
David R Currie, Lower Hutt.

Taxi trouble
For many years Wellington Airport Authority has allowed Wellington’s smaller cab companies the sole use of the priority lane to pick up passengers at our airport. Combined Taxis were required to occupy the outer, non priority lane that passengers had to walk further to access.
In the interest of fairness the lanes have been changed to enable passengers to choose Combined Taxis in the nearer lane.
If however passengers find that the smaller cab companies are in fact cheaper or provide a better service I am sure they will walk the extra twenty metres, and by-pass the inner lane.
Ron Blair, Te Aro.

Taxi trouble
Both your correspondent’s letter, and your article about the excessive number of taxis hanging around waiting for a fare, are right on.
We need fewer taxis doing more work.  I am all for unlimited taxi numbers, but not unlimited taxi fares.
I believe the fare structure should be controlled so that it takes taxis at least a few hours work to earn enough to survive on, rather than – as your article suggests - ‘a couple of trips to the airport’ – which for the user, are remarkably expensive.
Lower fares would mean more people would use fewer taxis, and there would be fewer taxis sitting around blocking the streets or waiting in huge queues at the airport.
Do we NEED to pay a fortune just to get to the airport? Do we really need all these taxis?
Andrew Jamieson, Mt Victoria.