World record hauls of ecstasy have occurred in Australia since 2004 but nothing approaches the 4.4 tonnes detected in tomato cans in June in Melbourne with a street value of $440 million. It seems that despite extensive education and interdiction, Australia's youth have embraced this drug like no other. The market remains buoyant.

As a GP in Kings Cross, I have seen hundreds of ecstasy users over the past decade, and despite horror stories in the press most take this drug with impunity. The phenomenon of "Eckie Monday" (the weekend "come-down" from a binge requiring a medical certificate for work absence) is common. So, too, is the weight loss and lack of vitality in habitual users who dance themselves into exhaustion and grind their teeth in clubs all over Sydney.

Early mornings in the Cross provide a cavalcade of burnt-out E users heading home after an all-nighter. But for the most part they do not suffer serious medical problems. A few may develop overheating or hyperthermia and require a short admission for hydration with a litre of fluid or two intravenously in an emergency department. Seizures and drug-induced psychosis do happen, but at a very low rate. Even this outcome does little to dissuade users to quit their drug of choice.

Sure there are horror stories of PMA (para methoxy amphetamine), a cheaper, dangerous substitute for ecstasy causing sudden death, but this is so rare as to not affect demand. Ecstasy testing kits are now available over the internet. These testing kits are common in Europe outside clubs and should be encouraged here.

Young people are educated on the risks and dangers of all illicit drugs. Most schools now have excellent drug education programs covering all illicit drugs in Australia. Children use the internet to plug holes in their knowledge and successive government programs portraying ecstasy as a danger have done little to reduce ecstasy use in Australia.

Most young users have observed their friends taking the drug without adverse effects. Combine this with the boundless optimism of youth and an unshakeable belief that they are bulletproof and you have a recipe for an explosion in demand.

Drug use follows fashion cycles, and in many ways governments' demonisation, with their horrific video footage, entrenches the inevitable generational warfare between the young and their parent's generation. It is unusual in my experience for a young person to request treatment for ecstasy abuse unless they are dragged kicking and screaming by a concerned parent. They do not want treatment if their recreational use is limited to weekend recreation, and will show a therapist bored disinterest.

Price is a keen indicator of availability and none of my patients ever complain of difficulty obtaining ecstasy. So we can conclude that despite these huge hauls by federal police and the national crime authority, significant stockpiling must occur around the country.

Drug trafficking will go on as long as there is demand. Australia has always been at the forefront of illicit drug use worldwide. In 1936 we had the highest use per capita in the Western world of cocaine and heroin. And now we appear to have won a gold medal for ecstasy. Very little has changed.

Raymond Seidler Addiction medicine specialist, Potts Point

An amazing spectacle! And that was just our outfits

Love the funky, retro techno-disco look, particularly the silver jockey cap. Nice, different … unusual.

Richard Wood Milton

The whole world knows our colours are green and gold, so after watching hours of teams entering the stadium, many in national costume, how does Australia present itself? As a total joke in disco gear.

Peter Nelson Hanoi

They looked like a bunch of security guards out for Christmas drinks. But I have no problem with doing away with the traditional colours. Green and gold always reminded me of a packet of chicken Twisties.

Lloyd Swanton Wentworth Falls

Who cares about fashion? The Australian outfits for the Olympics opening ceremony were obviously designed to stand out in the smog.

Kel Joaquin-Byrne Randwick

How wonderful to see the unfettered joy of the children running onto the Beijing Olympic arena, and how disturbing to see them handing over the Chinese flag to the goose-stepping military. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Pauline Skellon Mount Keira

Vladimir Putin mustn't have been paying attention during the bit about peace between nations at the opening ceremony ("Georgia fears annihilation after Russian assault", smh.com.au, August 10).

Robbie Roach Randwick

What about the recurring goose-step? Scary.

Nigel Abbott Edgecliff

If I have to watch our Olympians putting their hands over their hearts American-style during the playing of our anthem I am going to feel sick.

Tony Gittins Springwood

Apart from the lip-synching, the infernal bagpipes, the copycat Nikki Webster, the colour of the Aussie uniforms and the commentators talking over the heavenly tones of Sarah Brightman, it wasn't a bad effort.

Paul Hunt Engadine

The opening ceremony was a spectacle but it did not move me. It was so mechanical. Where was the Muhammad Ali factor of the Los Angeles Games? During the Sydney Olympics, I cried, I laughed, I smiled and I winced on a couple of occasions. I prayed while Vanessa Amorosi sang the high notes, hoping the voice would not crack. I remember the dread when the torch got stuck. I hope future opening ceremonies don't become computer screen imitations.

Carol le Roux Wamberal

We watched in stunned silence. The opening ceremony must be the greatest event in the history of China. With the theme "one world, one dream", China demonstrated superbly an enactment of this: bringing together people from all parts of the globe. The background sounds of those timeless drums of Africa provided a stirring reminder of the birthplace of humanity. Congratulations to China.

Bill Mathew Parkville

As millions tuned in around the world, I'll bet there were millions like me yelling at the TV: "Show me the bloody wide shot." If there are hundreds of drummers or dancers or whatever performing in perfect unison, I don't want to see an arty shot of 20 of them, I want to see them all. I am sure those at the stadium will tell you it was the greatest opening ceremony ever, but TV viewers were left wondering.

Tim Wilson Neutral Bay

Your story on Patrick Mills saying he will carry the Aboriginal flag if the Boomers win a medal (smh.com.au, August 9-10) misses one point. China has banned the display of all flags other than the national standard, presumably to avoid Tibetan flags.

Noni Edwards London

This was scary. Please, London, make it short and sweet in 2012. Please.

Ingo Weinberger Campsie

With the Olympics upon us, Cynthia Banham's comment that "I used to live by the credo that if you worked hard enough … anything was achievable. I now know that this is not the case" ("Leadership little to do with rank", August 9-10) is highly relevant.

Every four years we are treated to triumphant gold medallists telling us that "you can do anything you want if you are prepared to work for it" or "I was the one who wanted it the most". Such comments are, of course, a not-so-subtle put-down to the other competitors, all of whom doubtless worked just as hard and wanted to win just as much. These athletes also fail to acknowledge that they have been blessed with good coaching, financial support, a bit of luck and, most of all, good genes.

I worked with young athletes for several years. I knew many who had all the commitment in the world but who did not achieve their dreams, many because of illness or injury, and some through lack of family or financial support. Most were simply not talented enough.

Without wanting to detract from the massive effort put in by all Olympians, I appeal to the successful ones not to lecture the rest of us mere mortals on what we should be able to achieve.

Kate Greenwood Jindabyne

Wow.

Victor Marshall Erskineville

Policy on surplus roos is a wanton waste

Dr George Wilson may already be aware that some landholders on the South Coast are involuntarily "farming" kangaroos. Many thousands of them, in lieu of beef cattle. Those cattle no longer have sustainable feed ("Put roo on the menu or rue the day", August 8). Regrettably they cannot go on the menu and are just shot and left to rot.

The official policy is shoot, tag and lie. This is pointless, grossly wasteful and an environmentally unsuitable solution to the kangaroo overpopulation.

David Montgomery Bingie, via Moruya

Pointless projects

A 300-space car park beneath the docks, just as peak oil is happening? A forested headland where mangroves will grow anyway when sea levels rise, speeded up by NSW's ambitious coal expansion plans? Some 120,000 square metres of new office space as financial institutions reduce their staff to survive the mortgage crisis?

Our politicians must be living in a strange world to have all these projects in mind.

Matt Mushalik Epping

If the Japanese can do it …

Nicholas Poynder (Letters, August 9), only the insane would want millions to be spent on a new Spit Bridge: most of us who need to use the present one five days a week realise that it would be a grotesque waste of taxpayers' money since traffic would still be held up, albeit a few hundred metres beyond a new bridge.

Taking into account the never-ending increase in high-density housing north of the Spit Bridge, one sane solution would be to build a tunnel that starts well beyond the northern end of the bridge, then proceeds under Balgowlah, Beauty Point and Mosman towards the Harbour Bridge.

But why not a tram or train tunnel that conveys passengers to the southern side of the harbour? To the Hungry Mile perhaps?

The Japanese managed to build a tunnel that enables commuters to travel by train from the island of Honshu to the island of Hokkaido, with 23.3 kilometres of the journey being under the seabed. (Didn't we have the Snowy Mountains Scheme?)

Henk Verhoeven Beacon Hill

Hero for art's sake

Andrew Frost says the Blake Prize art judge Christopher Allen (Opinion, August 8) is conservative and "out of step with the gallery-going public". Well, I'm a regular gallery-going person and Allen is not out of step with me.

An artist is not necessarily a good artist just because he is a publicity hound. Similarly, an art critic is not necessarily conservative, as Frost contends, just because he cannot condone mediocrity.

Unlike Frost, I haven't known Adam Cullen for 20 years, but I have known his work and I often thought that it erred on the side of the mediocre. Ditto for Mike Parr. Let's face it, the glory days of conceptualism are long gone. Contemporary art needs to be fresh and original and I am afraid with Cullen and Parr it's a case of "oh no, here come those tired old tits again".

The big problem with this type of passe stuff is that the art community is still in love with it all and in light of that I think Allen's action was rather heroic.

Fran Lester Mosman

Parallels with Kosovo

A province ethnically different from the country it was arbitrarily made part of is trying to split from it and instead join fellow members of its cultural group in a neighbouring country.

Russia is doing exactly the same in South Ossetia as the West did in Kosovo. But Russia opposed what the West did in Kosovo, and the West opposes what Russia is doing in South Ossetia.

If the West was right to do what it did in Kosovo, then Russia is right to do what it's doing in South Ossetia. If Russia is wrong in South Ossetia then the West was wrong on Kosovo.

Gordon Drennan Burton (SA)

Third World families should benefit from City to Surf

The casual abandonment of clothing in the gutters along the City to Surf route yesterday clearly indicates the throw-away nature of affluent societies such as ours. Collection for distribution among Third World families might be considered an appropriate follow-up activity.

Gaz Simpson Edgecliff

Despite weeks, if not months, of advance publicity for Sunday's City to Surf, no need to guess when CityRail chose to do trackwork on the Harbour Bridge.

Edward Loong Milsons Point

No rabbits in sight

It's good to see the Great Wall of China making a positive contribution to the Olympic environment. I haven't seen a single rabbit at any of the venues.

Brian Jeffrey Gunnedah

Tell me the difference, please

What is the difference between a performance-enhancing drug and a performance-enhancing swimsuit?

Gwen Bedford West Pennant Hills

The power of Ramsey

Ahh, the power of Alan Ramsey's pen. He enrages me one weekend and drives me to floods of tears the next. As someone who has married into a family bearing the scars of Sandakan, I hope Ramsey's crusade to remind us all of what our prisoners of war endured continues long after our last POW has passed on.

Sarah Robertson East Lindfield

Not much help for Leonardo

I bet the descendants of Michelangelo, Renoir, Da Vinci, Monet et al are getting their hopes up at the prospect of a royalties cheque ("Artists to be paid for every sale, for ever more", August 9).

Alison Etheridge Avalon Beach

It is unsurprising that the part of the "art" community that has profited from ripping off Aboriginal artists for years would object to the proposed resale royalty on art. I mean, really, how dare the Government reduce its profits.

Vic Adams Reid (ACT)

Gitmo would be envious

There it is in all its glory, via Google Street View - my home sweet home, with the car of a friend in the driveway. Theoretically, I guess it would have been all the same if an erstwhile "secret lover" had selected that day to bestow his rampant favours on me. Guantanamo Bay interrogators would verily have ranked as mere novices.

Rosemary O'Brien Georges Hall

From Bulldog to bullfrog?

Now that a certain former Bulldog is officially a French rugby union player will he now be known as a bullfrog?

Garth Clarke North Sydney

Energy cost rise is a bargain

If it costs a mere 17 per cent increase on my electric, Greg Thorp (Letters, August 9), to put the blighted coal era behind us, 'tis the bargain of the century. Show me somebody who couldn't cut their usage by 20 per cent and I'll show you somebody deserving of a rebate.

Carl Sparre Eastwood