I've read many, many of the articles by Theodore Dalrymple that are posted at cityjournal.org. This is the first one I've encountered where I see myself in clear disagreement with him.
Decriminalization of drugs will not "cure" the current crop of soldiers in the gang armies, but at the least it will curtail the money that those armies have for recruiting. Additionally, the lowering, incrementally, of average expected earnings to be had by illegal activities will have the effect of causing a greater percentage of youth to accept legitimate employment. They are not all lost souls.

Sully, Philadelphia, PA

Yes, if it wasn't drugs it would be something else.

What has changed since I was young, in the 50s and 60s, is the complete inability of society to reprimand or punish the bad lads.

There were always bad lads - caused fights at the weekly dance, nicked cars, picked fights with gangs from other towns. But a good thumping at the local police station when they got above themselves and a good education (whether they wanted it or not) meant they grew up into employable adults and reasonable fathers.

Political correctness and individual rights have ruined their chance of a decent life.

Anne Hart, Wyoming, USA

I agree with Mr Williams. The evidence from the USA when they ended prohibition of alcohol argues that gang violence is massively reduced when their black market is destroyed. End prohibition and replace it with a licensed, regulated market and you end the gangsters' easy money. Of course the gangs will likely seek other forms of criminal money but it won't be nearly so easy. After all there's not much demand for extortion and kidnappings but there is for drugs. Distorting the demand/supply laws through prohibition has been a ghastly, expensive mistake.

Alexandra Gibbs, London,

A little dose of game theory may help.

Legalisation of the current crop of drugs would merely move the dealers on to pushing novel drugs that weren't yet legal.

The result of this would be an arms race, of course. The end point would logically be dealers selling lethal drugs which the NHS simply refused to prescribe to addicts because of their lethality, and for which there were no safe alternatives. This arms race has only one outcome because the NHS cares about the survival of its clients and the dealers don't.

The trade in illegal drugs will always be with us. The problem is how to contain it.

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

With respect to Mr Williams, I read Theodore Dalrymple as suggesting that gun culture is the result of a social problem, and that the drug trade, far from being the cause of the culture, is merely the arena in which it is currently being performed. I agree. In my opinion, if, in isolation, the drug trade is dealt with so that it is no longer the focal point of criminality, all that will happen is that the social problem will manifest itself somewhere else. It's totally impossible to reach the stage where criminals give up their activity through lack of opportunity, so if we want to reduce the level of criminality we have no option but to address and remedy the factors that cause it.

But, as Dr Dalrymple implies, there is no sign that our Government accepts this view of things, and every evidence that the direction in which we are heading is, in fact, diametrically opposite to that which is necessary.

Simon Stephenson, Windermere, UK

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That is one of the reasons I am against the legalisation of drugs: if it weren’t for the drugs trade, they might turn their guns on the rest of us rather than on rival dealers.
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With logic like that, we can't expect a solution to this problem any time soon.

Make no mistake, the illegal drugs trade - with it's huge profits and offers of instant wealth - is at the heart of the problem. End the illegal drugs trade and you get some way toward addressing the root cause of the gun culture. The only way to end the illegal trade is to regulate and control it.

The war on drugs is ripping this country to bits - it wouldn't be so bad if it actually worked and put people off using drugs, but it doesn't.

Derek Williams, Norwich, Norfolk