Editor, The Star, Sir,

While I can appreciate Alliance MP Randy White's horror in touring the
heroin maintenance programs in Europe, I believe he is looking at it from
the wrong perspective.

The fact of the matter is these programs are lowering crime, the spread of
AIDS and actually getting addicts back to work and contributing to society.
These programs are not cure-alls. They do attract addicts from other areas.
They aren't getting rid of drug use, but they are dealing with it. In order
to solve a problem we have to learn how to deal with it.

Addiction is ugly and so are the images of the heroin maintenance programs,
but if we want to solve these problems we're going to have to face them as
opposed to trying to arrest our way out of them.

Jason Marrs

Ossining, New York