DRUG WAR DOESN'T FIGHT CRIME

To the editor:

Please consider publishing the following brief letter in response to Chris
DiPietro's Feb. 11th op-ed ("Opiate habit easy to get by prescription,"
Page 10): Because heroin is sold via an unregulated illicit market, its
quality and purity fluctuate tremendously. A user accustomed to low-quality
heroin who unknowingly uses near pure heroin will likely overdose. The
inevitable tough-on-drugs response to overdose deaths threatens public
safety. Attempts to limit the supply of drugs while demand remains constant
only increase 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 puritanical drug policies
modeled after its 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 under way 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.

Robert Sharpe

Policy Analyst

Common Sense for Drug Policy

Washington, D.C.