The Editor, Sir:

Gwynne Dyer's January 12 column was right on target. There is a middle ground between drug prohibition and blanket legalisation. Switzerland's heroin maintenance programme has been shown to reduce disease, death and crime among chronic users.

Providing addicts with standardised doses in a clinical setting eliminates many of the problems associated with heroin use.

Heroin maintenance pilot projects are under way in Canada, England, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. If expanded, prescription heroin maintenance would deprive organised crime of a core client base. This would render illegal heroin trafficking unprofitable and spare future generations from addiction.

Marijuana should be taxed and regulated like alcohol, only without the ubiquitous advertising. Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as marijuana distribution remains in the hands of organised crime, consumers of the most popular illicit drug will continue to come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like cocaine.

Given that marijuana is arguably safer than legal alcohol, it makes no sense to waste scarce resources on failed policies that finance organised crime and facilitate the use of hard drugs.

Drug policy reform may send the wrong message to children, but I like to think the children are more important than the message.

For information on the efficacy of heroin maintenance please read the following British Medical Journal report: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7410/310.

To learn more about heroin maintenance research in Canada please visit: http://www.naomistudy.ca/

I am, etc.,

ROBERT SHARPE, MPA

Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

http://www.csdp.org

P.O. Box 59181

Washington, DC 20012

United States of America

rsharpe@csdp.org

Via Go-Jamaica