Hearing the news on television on Tuesday, 3 May, I came to the conclusion that I had a hearing problem. Poor me. At 48 I needed a hearing aid.

Reading TMID on Wednesday, 4 May, I came to a decision that my eyes needed testing too.

What else? Since my niece was at home looking at the mirror wondering how to tantalise another guy, I yelled at her to rush over and read properly what I thought was a figment of my imagination. She read out loud.

After my first rush of happiness at having my eyes and ears on the OK list tailed off, an angry emotion swept over me.

“National report says drug problem limited,” read the first page of TMID and, “Drug abuse is restricted to a small section of population” read page two.

I read through the contents of the article not once but three times and at the end of it all, I said five words to myself, “How low can one get?”

First of all, there are certainly not around 3,000 heroin users in Malta. There certainly was not this small number in 2003 and more certainly not now in 2005. The truth is that the problem is bigger than we think.

Why – if we take the localities of Valletta, Qormi, Cospicua, Mosta, Tarxien, Marsascala and Gzira alone we’d reach the target of 3,000 heroin users, let alone 3,000 all over Malta.

What is Minister Dolores Cristina trying to tell us?

All this is based on the fact that in 2003 there were 1,450 people with heroin problems in treatment, 925 users on a daily basis and 625 in substitution taking methadone for a period of three months. Er… excuse my eternal stupidity, but what about heroin users who are not in treatment? How on earth are they going to figure this one out?

Another incorrect assumption is that Minister Dolores Cristina alleged that, compared to the figures of other EU countries, drug abuse is restricted to a small section of the population.

As for the Lm1.5 million the government spends annually to combat drug abuse, could she please specify where the money goes? Heroin has entered the prison gates; it’s inside schools, on the streets, near the detox centre at St Luke’s Hospital…

Again I ask, where are the Lm1.5 million going to combat drug abuse? Why do we have to politicise everything, making out that the drug problem is under control because we have a Nationalist government? Who cares who is governing our country? If we have a heroin drug problem, why don’t we all say it?

What Mgr Victor Grech said in 2001 still makes me shake with fear. He told the truth and nothing but the truth: “We have lost the battle against drugs”.

The year is now 2005 and I’m sure Mgr Grech will agree with me when I say: “We have the lost the ‘war’ against drugs”.

Valerie Borg

VALLETTA