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here are easy solutions and then there are effective solutions. Unfortunately, the easy solutions are rarely effective and the effective solutions take a great deal of thinking and take a while to work.

I suspect that many people get tired of thinking and just want to execute people and then get on with their lives as if they have thereby solved the problem.

All they have done is exercise a natural desire for revenge for all the problems that drugs cause.

The definition of insanity is '€œyou keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result'€. You have to think outside the box '€” use the conscious mind not the primitive auto-reflex.

The only way to stop drug-taking is to change the culture or mind-set of vulnerable people. How do you do that?

You start by educating the young people in school about the risks and suffering that they cause for themselves, their families and the nation.

Essentially you need a '€œDon'€™t be a Victim!'€ campaign which involves three elements: compulsory education in schools '€” primary and secondary '€” focusing on healthy minds and bodies. In secondary, challenge students to sign a pledge in front of their fellow students that they will not take drugs and will become an anti-drug advocate in the community.

A national '€œevery life is important'€ campaign in the Monday newspapers and on TV to show people the effect of drugs on peoples'€™ lives, their families pride and their communities'€™ goals. This should include a current measure of the number of drug users in the community compared with the target for current year, which is set as 5 to 10 percent less than what it was at the end of the previous year.

This should include a weekly personal story involving individuals who have done a lot to reduce drug-taking.

Really, we should look upon people convicted of drug crimes as valuable assets. If they have genuinely reformed, they should be given the opportunity to go out into the community to become anti-drug advocates. Let them turn their renewed passion for life into a passion for clean living and service to others.

I personally would not be prepared to kill someone unless they are trying to kill me. I am sure that is true for many people. So, I would not feel morally right to urge others to kill someone in my name.

Remember, if you urge the President to execute someone who appears to have reformed while in jail, he will have to issue the order to someone else to pull the trigger.

Would you really want to do that? Would you really want that if it was a relative or neighbor who had made a silly mistake in life and was truly sorry? I hope not. Surely Indonesia is a just and caring society that wants to rid itself of drug-taking through well thought-out strategies.

Greg Welsby
Brisbane