PUT DRUGS OUT OF FASHION

Policy Options: Robert Sharpe

Regarding your March 23 editorial in the Sunday Monitor, which made
mention of the American government's war on drug trafficking, my
position is that 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 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 underway in Canada, 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 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 organised 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 organised 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/

ROBERT SHARPE

Mr Sharpe is a policy analyst working with Common Sense for Drug
Policy in Washington, USA. www.csdp.org