U.S. DRUG POLICY FAILURE FUELS CRIME RATES

Thank you for raising awareness of harm-reduction alternatives to to
the drug war with your April 1 editorial. Attempts to limit the supply
of drugs while demand remains constant only increases the
profitability of trafficking.

For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads
desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate
habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime; it fuels crime.

While the United States remains committed to harmful drug policies
modeled after our disastrous experiment with alcohol prohibition,
Europe has largely abandoned the drug war in favor of harm reduction
alternatives.

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 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. Students who want to help reform
harmful drug laws should contact Students for Sensible Drug Policy at
http://www.ssdp.org.

Thank you for your consideration.

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, MPA Policy Analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy