Bearing in mind that alcohol and tobacco kill many thousands of UK people annually and yet remain legal, it seems somewhat strange that less harmful substances have become the focus of government attention. Cannabis has never been directly attributed to any deaths, yet year in and year out we hear "experts" talking complete rubbish with respect to it. Ecstasy is another bone of contention.
Mr. Brunstrom is quite correct. The war against drugs in the 'States illustrates the point perfectly. They have massive resources and many thousands of DEA staff and they can't stem the flow so what chance a British Bobby and the government du jour. Stupid people will always die of excess be it tobacco, alcohol, cocaine , heroine or even food.

Jeffers, Maidstone, UK

It may well be that 200 people have died from ecstacy related issues since 1996 but that figure must be dwarfed by the figure for cigarettes and alcahol. Mr Brunstrom is clearly motivated by the right reasons to say what he has and people should open up and listen to him. Obviously, as has been seen before in the USA, prohibition NEVER works and merely drives everything to the underworld. It would be interesting to properly assess whether legalisation, whilst seemingly unpalatable, may in fact be the right answer to the drug problem. Having tried ecstasy myself, I would tend to agree with him that it is not as harmful as other substances assuming the right handling. Focus on education and regulation, similar to alcahol, could be an answer. It MUST be worth trying since the present approach is failing miserably.

Gary, Hong Kong, China