Is it complete eradication, that somehow, miraculously, all the poor individuals that are caught up in illicit drug use are going to wake up one day and realise just how damaging their habit is to their lives and society as a whole?

We have got to be kidding.

The war on drugs has been going on for as long as I can remember. I am now in my late 50s. What have we got to show for it? Burgeoning prison populations of generally harmless men and women whom (for whatever reasons) have chosen to go down a path of addiction; billions effectively wasted in monitoring, detecting, enforcing and imprisoning drug importers and users; organised crime syndicates lurking in our suburbs somehow evading capture or simply being replaced by another when apprehended. This is insane, and it's time for a radical rethink. Let's tidy up and regulate the illicit drug industry. Allow addicts to register for their drug/s of dependency and allow them access in a clean, regulated safe and controlled way. Resource such facilities with doctors and counsellors that can help these people before, during and after their fight with addiction.

What would be the outcome of such a radical rethink? Better, cleaner, safer drugs leading to less death for our young people. Less crime. Tax revenue from drug importation. Reduction in prison population. Transparency and openness. The elimination of the black market and the associated organised crime that goes with that.

I am not pro-drug. In fact, I hate drugs. I can, however, recognise a failed policy when I see one and history is on my side. Prohibition never works, but regulation does. Time for a rethink on our war on drugs.

CONGRATULATIONS Ruby Hackett and Aleeyah Clifford for the energy you both put into Saturday's Our Body Our Choice rally ('Rally calls for law change', Newcastle Herald 22/7). It is great to see younger women standing up for their rights.

Too often old fools like me give a hoo-ha when younger folk rally together. Ladies (and you are both ladies), good luck with everything. I stand behind you.

IT'S time for those of us who bother to support city centre traders to start calling out the suburban armchair myths ('CBD will rise like 'phoenix', Newcastle Herald 18/7). There is no parking problem in the Newcastle central business district. There never has been. Every single city street is open and carrying traffic without incident, including brand new north-south connections at Worth Place and Steel Street.

Although I've always been in the habit of going into the city on public transport, at one point from Seaham of all places, last Friday I drove. Between Tudor Street and Pacific Park I counted 97 available car parks at 3.30pm on a week day, 42 of them immediately adjacent to the light rail tracks.

This is in addition to similar vacancies on King Street, the multi-storey commercial garages and whatever could be nabbed on one of the 20 cross streets between Dairy Farmers and the beach.

Failing that, you can always ditch your car for nothing on Glebe Road, Maitland Road or Tudor Street and put your thumb out for a regular and direct bus service.

There is no longer any valid excuse for not going into the city and supporting the traders sticking it out as the rest of us adjust to an unprecedented wave of change and investment. The only thing more ridiculous than our car-park talk is how much this place has going for it in 2019.

WE all recognise that bear-baiting was a cruel spectator sport conducted in the not-so-distant past. I think that isolating a single player and subjecting him or her to sustained ridicule and taunting is tantamount to bear-baiting.

Across the various football codes, measures have been taken to protect their young players from abuse including having marshals monitoring crowd behaviour, and rightly so.

During the weekend I witnessed poor behaviour from a half dozen spectators in an Under 20s game.

It can be argued that young men don't need the same protection as children, but isn't taunting from behind the barricade and in the company of mates just another form of bullying? Remember what happened to Adam Goodes.

NEW state upper house member Mark Latham's ideal of school funding and teacher bonus rewards linked to exam results is a reflection on his oblivious insight into the functioning of teachers and school needs (SMH, 4/7). School demographics relay a reflection of school outcomes.

The near 200 schools of North Sydney embraced vastly better NAPLAN outcomes above those of the south-western Sydney region, where socio-economic standings are poles apart (SMH, 11/18). Selective high schooling, where staffing is not selected, reflects an impact as well.

The Latham ideal of those in pupil feeder regions gaining bonus payments as reward incentives says little for the silent majority. It gives little credence to the intrinsic role of resource teachers, English as a second language (ESL) teachers, teacher-librarians, reading recovery teachers, counsellors, non-teaching executives and many more. Teacher competition at the expense of colleagues is divisive, less than insightful and an undoubted anathema to the well being of the profession where reward is through pupil outcomes and status outcomes.

I KNOW the Knights were outclassed in the last 20 minutes of the game against the Roosters ('Watson admits if felt like Knights gave up', Newcastle Herald 22/7), however there were a couple of decisions late in the game that really blew the score out.

A forward pass from Morris to Radley for a try, and the knock-on from Butcher from the kick-off that blind Freddy would have seen resulting in a try under the post. Please give us a female referee ('Praise heaped on NRL's first female referee in historic match', SBS 18/7). At least they are able to see the obvious. At the same time, put one in the video bunker. It might help them out.