U.S. POLICY EXACERBATES USE OF HEROIN

In her Oct. 26 column, Parallel tragedies of Colombia, the U.S., Maria
Cristina Caballero noted that ``it might be worthwhile to cut the flow of
drug money by providing treatment to U.S. drug addicts.''

Heroin produced in Afghanistan is primarily consumed in Europe, a continent
already experimenting with public-health alternatives to the drug war,
alternatives with previously unforeseen implications.

Switzerland's heroin-maintenance trials, which are modeled after the
methadone-maintenance programs pioneered in the United States, have shown
such promise at reducing drug-related disease, death and crime that they
are being replicated in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.

Providing chronic addicts with standardized doses in a treatment setting
has been shown to eliminate many of the problems associated with the use of
black-market heroin. 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 illicit market prices.

If expanded, prescription-heroin maintenance ultimately would deprive
organized crime of its client base. This would render illegal heroin
trafficking unprofitable, spare future generations from addiction and
significantly undermine the Taliban's funding.

Harm-reduction policies have the potential to reduce the perils of both
drug use and drug prohibition.

ROBERT SHARPE
Lindesmith Center
Drug Policy Foundation
Washington, D.C.