WHAT'S WORSE: SUGAR OR HEROIN?

The award for most creative defence of the year should go to the Vancouver
lawyer who claims sugar is more dangerous than heroin.

I've pondered long and hard on the subject as I sit at my sedentary job
munching sugar-loaded chocolate macaroons.

You won't find me peddling macaroons to street kids because, frankly, I
want them all for myself.

But even if I did give the local kids a taste of these melt-in-your-mouth
candies, what's the worst that could happen? Too much sugar will make you
fat and rot your teeth. But unlike heroin, sugar isn't addictive.

A lack of willpower might lower your inhibitions to the point where you
occasionally demolish two or three helpings of cake or wolf down an entire
bag of candy.

But it's a far cry from the intense physical and psychological need for
heroin experienced by addicts on a daily basis.

Let's be honest here. You can't overdose on sugar. Scarfing a dozen
doughnuts in one sitting won't kill you, although you could have a heck of
a stomach ache. Overdosing on heroin, however, will send you to the morgue.

Yet, there is merit to the argument put forward by defence lawyer Peter
Leask in the B.C. Supreme Court last week.

The negative consequences of heroin use flow not from the nature of the
opiate itself but from prohibition, he said.

He has a point, although it's difficult to feel sympathy for his clients -
two men found guilty of trafficking and importing almost 100 kilograms of
heroin.

The bust, three years ago, was the largest heroin seizure in Canadian history.

The case is now in the sentencing phase and the prosecutor is seeking life
sentences. Leask, naturally, is grasping at straws to win lighter terms.

In fact, prohibition has caused enormous problems for addicts.

People who use clean, uncontaminated heroin in limited doses on a daily
basis can lead normal lives, notes Benedikt Fischer, associate professor of
public health sciences at the University of Toronto.

About the worst side-effect of taking pure heroin in low doses is
constipation, he says.

But, of course, heroin is addictive and users need to take more and more to
experience the same drug-induced feeling of euphoria.

According to Drugs and Drug Abuse, the standard reference bible in the
addictions field, eventually no amount of heroin is sufficient to produce
the euphoric effects desired.

At that stage, users continue to inject heroin - but largely to delay the
painful withdrawal symptoms that begin six to 12 hours after the last dose.

This is preferable to a sugar binge? I think I need another macaroon.

Although Leask's sugar comparison is ludicrous, his overall message is
legitimate. Many of the negative consequences of heroin use stem from
related problems related to its prohibition.

Illicit heroin is cut with all sorts of substances and users never know how
much of the drug they're taking.

Addicts rob and steal to get money to feed their habits and use shared
needles and dirty water to inject. Hence, the large numbers of users who
have HIV and hepatitis.

Users also end up in hospital with other complications, such as tetanus,
pneumonia, tuberculosis and heart-related trouble.

Those spiralling health and social costs are what prompted Ottawa and the
B.C. government to open North America's first safe-injection site in
Vancouver last week.

The hope is that allowing addicts to shoot up with clean syringes under
medical supervision with supportive counselling and referrals will reduce
risky behaviour, disease transmission and deaths.

In Leask's case, it's a good argument used with the wrong clients. These
aren't poor heroin addicts trying to get clean.

They're the scum of the earth - drug traffickers who plotted to enrich
themselves on the misery of others.

Life behind bars would be a sweet sentence.