It's about time someone took a hard line against drug dealers who peddle their wares to ever-younger children.

Not many people would disagree with that, which is why William Hague is on fairly certain popular ground in proposing automatic life sentences for dealers caught twice supplying hard drugs to people under 18.

Dealers know that the younger children are, the more suggestible they are too and the more likely to bow to peer pressure and give drugs a try.

As with the "two strikes and you're out" proposals, so it can be for users with "two hits and you're hooked". And once the dealers have got them, they can take them for every penny they have and quite a few pennies that their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and neighbours have too.

So good for young William and his fellow Conservatives for coming up with this tough line (although I suspect that the chances of us being able to discover if it will ever be translated into tough action is rather remote, at least for a few years).

But while I'm all in favour of taking a hard line against those who peddle drugs, surely it would be much easier to put an end to their activities if drug-taking was legalised.

I know that's not a popular point of view with everybody. When I've voiced it before I've had strong letters from people with genuine concerns that it could lead to a drugs free-for-all. But I simply can't see any alternative way forward, given that the fight against drugs appears to be being lost.

Prohibition doesn't work if enough people can be persuaded to try whatever it is you're prohibiting and there is enough profit to be made from it.

Look what happened when they banned booze in the United States. People still drank, the bootleggers made a fortune, and gang warfare and murder were commonplace.

In Britain, with drugs prohibited, people still use drugs, the dealers (and particularly their big-time suppliers) are making a fortune, and gang warfare and murder are becoming commonplace.

And, of course, a great deal of petty crime is put down to the need for users to steal to fund their habit.

So make drug-taking legal. Make the stuff available through approved outlets at prices much cheaper than the street price. Make drugs profits subject to tax, and with the money raised fund the clinics and rehab centres needed to help users fight their way out of their addiction. But stick to the draconian sentences proposed by the Tories for unofficial dealing, to discourage the undercutting of the official price.

With the profit motive virtually gone, there would be little point in dealers working to create new addicts in the playgrounds. With the price controlled there would be less need for addicts incapable of beating their habit to burgle to fund it. With a bit of luck the present upward spiral would settle down to a manageable plateau and, hopefully, would eventually decline.

That's my theory, anyway, for what it's worth. But I have another theory, too, which could undermine it - the stuff of nightmares.

It's that the drugs trade is by now so big, and has so deeply woven itself into the fabric of this country and corrupted its institutions - both political and financial - that it will never be shifted because too many people in positions of clout are making too much money out of it.

If that's the case, then whatever tough law-and-order proposals anyone comes up with, the hope of saving future generations from being tempted by the dealers are nil.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.