BARRY KEARNEY (CT, Letters, November 9) makes three questionable
propositions: "There is no such thing as a 'safe' injecting house";
"Heroin is such a dangerous drug that it is never 'safe' "; and
"Persecute the traffickers. Let's drive them off the streets and lock
them up".

Frankfurt-am-Main has experienced a fall in ambulance emergency
call-outs from 100 drug overdoses per week to two per week over a
four-year period since it first established a safe-injecting facility.
That improvement might not be experienced here, but it does warrant a
trial.

Some health professionals in some countries that permit the
prescription of heroin, whether for heroin maintenance or for the
treatment of extreme pain, consider heroin safer than morphine.
Demonising the drug does not make it more dangerous.

The vast majority of traffickers are users who traffic because they
cannot afford to satisfy their dependence on illicit drugs. The
traffickers who do not use - those in it for greed - have been offered
substances that have a very high profit margin.

The more traffickers locked up, the higher will be the margin, the
more will be the corruption, the more will be the children seduced to
fund both the dependent users and the greedy entrepreneurs.

Peter Watney