DRUG MESSAGE

REGARDING Jack Cole and Tom Lloyd's comments (News, November 30),
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, 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.

Cannabis should be taxed and regulated like alcohol, only without the
ubiquitous advertising. Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical.

As long as cannabis distribution remains in the hands of organised
crime, consumers of the most popular illicit drug will continue to
come into contact with sellers of cocaine.

Given that cannabis is arguably safer than legal alcohol, it makes no
sense to waste scarce resources on failed drug 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.

Robert Sharpe, MPA Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy
Washington United States of America