THERE IS MIDDLE GROUND ON DRUGS

Regarding the recent Los Angeles Times editorial advocating an end to
the current approach in the "war on drugs" and reprinted in Sunday's
Banner-Herald: There is a middle ground between drug prohibition and
blanket legalization.

Switzerland's heroin maintenance program has been shown to reduce
disease, death and crime among chronic users. The success of the Swiss
program has inspired heroin maintenance pilot projects in Canada,
Germany, Spain, Denmark 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 from 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 organized crime controls marijuana distribution,
consumers will continue to come into contact with addictive drugs like
cocaine and heroin.

Marijuana prohibition creates a gateway to 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, see a British
Medical Journal report on the Web at www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/317/7150/13,
and to learn more about Canada's heroin maintenance research, visit
the Web at www.naomistudy.ca.

Robert Sharpe

* Robert Sharpe is a policy analyst with Washington, D.C.-based
Common Sense for Drug Policy, a nonprofit organization working to
expand discussion of drug policy.