MARIJUANA SHOULD BE TAXED AND REGULATED

Editor:

Regarding Victor Bowman's Jan. 20th column, there is a middle ground
between drug prohibition and blanket legalization.

Switzerland's heroin maintenance trials have been shown to reduce
disease, death and crime among chronic users. 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 heroin
maintenance would deprive organized crime of a core client base.

This would render illegal heroin trafficking unprofitable and spare
future generations 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 marijuana distribution remains in the hands of organized
crime, consumers of the most popular illicit drug will continue to
come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like cocaine.

This 'gateway' is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.
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

Sincerely,

Robert Sharpe,

MPA Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy www.csdp.org Washington, DC