Raw numbers prove nothing. A valid conclusion would require consideration of complex personal profiles, complex vehicle accident profiles including fatality rates and data on other non-medical deaths.

At the other end of the spectrum, a vociferous lobby espouses euthanasia. Those into DIY euthanasia, those for whom life is too painful either physically and/or mentally, are not necessarily geriatrics.

The gross numbers involved are insignificant, particularly for the younger whose major cause of death is suicide anyway. It is dangerous to accuse doctors of overprescription for the merciful supply of analgesics to those in desperate need, even though that need be terminal for a few.

Unfortunately, reality is confounded by, indistinguishably tangled with, the emotional prohibitionist argument.

Gary J. Wilson, MacGregor

JILL Stark's article, ''Drugs bigger killers than cars'' (Sunday CT, June 23, p3), brings together many ideas that need separate evaluation. ''Drugs'' generates moral panic, immediately connoting illegality, conveniently eclipsing alternatives/herbal, over-the-counter, prescription, nicotine and alcohol, all chemicals exerting potential psychoactive and biological effects.

Alcohol is Australia's most deadly, legalised, excise-earning drug, whose purveyors use questionable lobbying wiles to minimise restrictions on its availability. Skilfully crafted, persuasive propaganda has successfully linked alcohol with happiness and contentment. Alcohol lubrication reduces ego control of a disinhibited id, lowering the impulsive behaviour threshold, making access to a vehicle, or drugs, an exciting challenge.

Failing to achieve an immediate kill, alcohol's gentle poison gradually, erodes quality of life in all spheres. Prescription medications are intended to treat diagnosed symptoms, but in doing so present undesirable side effects.

''Mother's little helper'' (Valium) and its class have undesirable, addictive qualities, which, while not necessarily themselves lethal, may lead to disinhibiting behaviour, which is.

Newer, commonly prescribed compounds are described as initiating suicidal ideation. ''Accidental overdoses'' is potentially conjecturally based. If death occurs it is left to observers to speculate its cause, but embarrassed survivors frequently dissemble.

Harassed doctors may prescribe potentially lethal medication to people who, because of psychic distress, ignore administration directions and precautions.

To minimise drug abuse emphasis must shift to dealing with causes of distress, especially psychic pain, rather than merely palliating symptoms.

Albert M. White, Queanbeyan

WHILE recognising that death from drugs is a major problem, the comparative road death figures included in this article are not correct. Across the age categories referred to, the total road deaths in 2011 were 567, not the 267 reported. On top of the nearly 1300 road deaths in 2011 another 30,000 were injured. The total cost of road trauma in Australia every year is in the order of $27 billion, about the size of the defence budget. Deaths from drugs and road deaths are still deaths and should be afforded the highest priority by everyone. While governments and large corporations can take a lead in dealing with these issues, it is up to every one of us to do our best to eradicate these scourges from our lives.

Nicholas Clarke, chief executive officer ANCAP Australasia Ltd

VIC ADAMS notes the production of $2 coins to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation and asks, ''Frankly, who cares?'' (''Coins for the Queen'', letter, June 23, p18). Many Australians do care and, in the referendum of 1999, voted to keep those links with the British monarchy by a substantial majority. Today the Australian republican movement is moribund.

If Adams and his mates want to revive the republican movement the first priority must be to decide what kind of republic they want, with a president chosen by the people or by Parliament. If they cannot even decide that among themselves, then why should anyone else take them seriously?

Robert Willson, Deakin

DR JUDY RYAN asserts that coal is the ''most renewable'' form of energy compared with solar and wind power (CT, 23/6). Since coal takes thousands of years to form, we need to be very patient to observe this renewal.

David Roth, Kambah

I TRUST Dr Judy Ryan has informed Macquarie Dictionary that coal is ''the most environmentally friendly, renewable form of energy''. It will need to change its definition: ''Renewable energy … energy which is naturally occurring and which is theoretically inexhaustible, such as energy from the sun or wind, and which by definition excludes energy derived from fossil fuels or nuclear fuels.''

Peter Snowdon, Aranda

IT WOULD be wonderful, Judy Ryan, if coal were more ''environmentally friendly and renewable'' than wind or solar energy. But just how ''friendly'' is all that carbon dioxide, and how ''friendly'' are the mercury and selenium that accompany it? What about the lead, uranium and thorium in the bottom ash, about 50 per cent of which (in Australia) is dumped into ''dams'' or ''lagoons''? Such storages are not isolated from groundwater nor, possibly, surface water.

Finally, how can coal possibly be ''renewable''? A Nobel prize would be inadequate reward for the person who shows how to re-create coal from its combustion products.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

LIKE Kevin Rudd, I believe in a sustainable Australia. Unlike Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, I recognise the reality that a sustainable Australia requires getting the total impact of the human population within limits that can be sustained indefinitely. That in turn requires stabilising our population and consumption so the total impact is less than it is now. It also means revising the naive assumption that satisfaction will be achieved by expanding the present inefficient and environmentally damaging pattern of economic development. I look forward to hearing from Mr Rudd and Mr Abbott about their master plans for achieving a sustainable Australia.

Prof. Ian Lowe, president, Australian Conservation Foundation

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