Opinions: Should Smith and Cahill have been released?

JOHN, Birmingham night club manager: There are an awful lot of dim Brummie girls out there and these two got well out of their league. It's not really an excuse, is it: 'I'm thick, so let me off'? They should be let out of that prison, but not let off - I'll be really sick if they get paid pounds 100,000.

KEN LUKOWIAK, writer and ex-cannabis smuggler: In this case, yeah, John Major did all right. I think the two of them were patsies - they were young and stupid, as we all are at some stage. Their families have spent a lot on trying to help them and if they get their money back, fine.

ANNA ALDERSON, travel agent: I don't begrudge them their freedom or even the Club Class flights home and the champagne, but I think giving them money to set them up for life because they were stupid enough to get involved in drugs is shocking.

IAN DOWELL, editor, Birmingham Evening Mail: We've had one of our biggest postbags of the year on this, and our switchboard has been jammed - and almost to a letter the people the West Midlands have no sympathy for them. A lot of people think that they should go on to serve another three or four years in a British jail. I agree with the readers.

TAMSIN GREEN, trainee hairdresser, 18: Yes, they should have been allowed out. People in this country commit murder and don't end up in prison. Drug smuggling isn't as bad as murder. I don't feel sorry for people who take drugs - no one forces them to do it.

CHAI JIRAWAN, supervisor, Blue Elephant Thai restaurant: I think the King has done the right thing because they were too young - they didn't know anything. He was also thinking about the good relationship between our countries.

ROSIE MORLE, assistant director, Standing Conference on Drug Abuse: It was their youth that got them their pardon. But there are lots of women in prison here for bringing in drugs, often with children who have had to be fostered. It's hypocritical of the Government not to be more compassionate with them.

JACKIE, social worker: What they did was wrong but not too hard to understand. I'd just as soon the newspapers gave money to someone like them than to some big fat celebrity with a smutty tale to tell.

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