SURRENDER DRUG WAR (2 of 2)

Re: "Drug warriors tote up the score" (Newslines, by Robert Speer,
CN&R, April 26):

After 93 straight years of failure, it's time to stop pretending that
drug prohibition accomplishes anything positive. Hypocritical drug-war
thinking has made drug crimes and accidental drug overdoses
commonplace where they never existed before. Drug prohibition cannot
cure these problems because it causes them.

Proof comes from the Swiss Heroin Maintenance Programme, where addicts
are supplied with cheap, pure heroin and cocaine. The Swiss have not
had a single overdose death in the program, and injection-transmitted
diseases (HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, etc) are now a rarity in Switzerland.
The criminal drug black market has vanished; addict crime has gone
down more than 97 percent. Swiss policy has also resulted in an 82
percent decrease in heroin addiction since 1990.

Anyone truly concerned about the victims of drugs will work to end an
immoral drug crusade that murders more than 30,000 people every year
and spawns a multitude of criminal activities.

REDFORD GIVENS

San Francisco