ON TUESDAY afternoon I received a call to tell me my younger brother had been found in a car park having hanged himself.

Nothing can prepare you for such a call and it has devastated our family.

Every time the phone rang day or night my first thought was it was going to be bad news about him.

My brother had for many years had a severe drug problem and, even though he went into many drug rehabilitation projects, he was unable to rid himself of this modern day plague.

The end result was his death.

I would give anything I possessed, including my own life, to have him back.

We will never be able to talk to him again, give him a hug, or tell him how much we have, and always will, love him.

I do not know the answer to combating drug use, but the way we attack it now is not working.

Some say they can handle the softer drugs and will not go onto the harder ones. My brother thought that and he has now paid the price. The cost to us as a family cannot be measured over the years – the constant worry about him and the thoughts that haunted us that this day would arrive.

He was a young man who should have been in the best years of his life, instead his last years have been eaten away by this filth.

Current operations with regard to law enforcement only touch the tip of the iceberg.

The law must be used efficiently and ruthlessly, it must be non stop targeting the source and supply, the middle men, and, yes, the user.

If we do not stop this menace there will be more devastated families day after day, year after year.

It’s too late for my much loved, and already sorely missed brother. Don’t let this menace take one of your loved ones.

Mark Predeth, Argyll Road, Boscombe