THE DRUG WAR DOESN'T FIGHT CRIME, IT FUELS IT

Dear Editor,

Regarding your March 3rd editorial captioned "The US drug report and
the crime crisis" the U.S. drug war is a cure worse than the disease.

Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains
constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For
addictive drugs like methamphetamine, a spike in street prices leads
desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate
habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

There is a middle ground between drug prohibition and legalization.

Switzerland's heroin maintenance programme has been shown to reduce
disease, death and crime among chronic users.

Providing addicts with standardized doses in a clinical setting
eliminates many of the problems associated with heroin use. Heroin
maintenance pilot projects are underway in Canada, Germany, Spain and
the Netherlands.

If expanded, prescription heroin maintenance would deprive organized
crime of a core client base. This would render illegal heroin
trafficking unprofitable and spare future generations 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 is controlled by organized crime,
consumers of the most popular illicit drug will continue to come into
contact with sellers of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. Given
that marijuana is arguably safer than legal alcohol, it makes no
sense to waste scarce resources on failed policies that finance
organized crime and facilitate hard drug use. 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 Canada's heroin maintenance research please
visit: http://www. naomistudy.ca/

Yours faithfully,

Robert Sharpe MPA

Policy Analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington DC USA