CONTROLLED HEROIN USE IS A BETTER SOLUTION

To the editor:

Regarding your Feb. 26 editorial on the opiate scourge: 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 chronic addicts with standardized doses in a clinical
setting eliminates many of the problems associated with heroin use.

Heroin maintenance pilot projects are underway in Canada, Germany,
Spain and the Netherlands. If expanded, prescription 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.