HEROIN MAINTENANCE PROGRAMME

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 illicit heroin use.

The success of the Swiss programme has inspired heroin maintenance
pilot projects in Canada, Germany, Spain, Denmark 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 organised crime controls cannabis distribution,
consumers will continue to come into contact with sellers of
addictive drugs like cocaine.

Given that cannabis is arguably safer than legal alcohol -- the plant
has never been shown to cause an overdose death -- it makes no sense
to waste tax revenue on failed policies that finance organised crime
and facilitate 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 please read the
following British Medical Journal report:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7410/310

To learn more about Canada's heroin maintenance research visit
www.naomistudy.ca

Robert Sharpe, MPA, Policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, DC