THERE are parts of the town centre of Liskeard that you can't approach without being assailed by the stench of cannabis, such as the site of the old Railway Hotel, Bay Tree Hill and Lower Lux Street.

The cannabis and cocaine which permeate this scofflaw town feed its plagues of shoplifting, domestic violence, dangerous driving, antisocial behaviour and street crime.

It's the same situation throughout Cornwall, twenty-first century England's Wild West, stoking the Duchy's crises.

So, isn't it now time that the hard-pressed forces of the law, so tied up with responding to its symptoms, might be encouraged to turn more of their resources towards addressing the root cause of Cornwall's malaise, the drug epidemic which blights our towns?

George Jones

Liskeard