Responding to an article by Malcolm Beith in the current issue of The New Statesman magazine (Mexico's drug war: the battle without hope, 13/8/12), NTA chief executive, Paul Hayes argues that, despite the situation in producer countries, the battle to tackle drug addiction in England is far from lost and the debate about legalisation is a distraction from facing and comprehensively addressing the social and economic factors that underpin drug use, addiction and the drugs trade.

Paul's response appears in full on the New Statesman website here