FREE HEROIN PUTS HEALTH BEFORE POLITICS

To the editor:

Re: "NAOMI's end will junk lives," May 3.

Switzerland's heroin maintenance trials have been proven 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.

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.

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.

Robert Sharpe

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.