HEROIN PROJECTS PROVE CRIMINAL ASPECT COULD END

Regarding Barbara Yaffe's Sept. 29 Column, Poppies Behind Afghan War:

Heroin produced in Afghanistan is primarily consumed in Europe, a
continent already experimenting with harm-reduction alternatives to
the U.S. government's global drug war.

Switzerland's heroin-maintenance trials have been shown to reduce
drug-related disease, death, and crime among chronic users. Addicts
would not be sharing needles if not for zero-tolerance laws that
restrict access to clean syringes, nor would they be committing
crimes if not for artificially inflated black-market prices.

Providing addicts with standardized doses in a clinical setting
eliminates the problems associated with illicit 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.

Putting public health before politics may send the wrong message to
children, but I like to think the children are more important than the message.

Robert Sharpe

Policy Analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.