Pubdate: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 Source: Sunday Business Post (Ireland) Copyright: 2006 The Sunday Business Post Contact: http://www.sbpost.ie/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/577 Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n1733/a05.html Author: Robert Sharpe TACKLING THE DRUGS CRISIS Regarding Tom McGurk's column (24/12/06), there is a middle ground between drug prohibition and blanket legalisation. Switzerland's heroin maintenance programme has been shown to reduce disease, death and crime among chronic users. Providing addicts with standardised doses in a clinical setting eliminates many of the problems associated with heroin use. Heroin maintenance pilot projects are underway in Canada, England, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. If expanded, prescription heroin maintenance would deprive organised crime of a core client base. This would render illegal heroin trafficking unprofitable and spare future generations from addiction. Cannabis should be taxed and regulated like alcohol, but without the ubiquitous advertising. Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as cannabis distribution remains in the hands of organised crime, consumers of the most popular illicit drug will continue to come into contact with sellers of hard drugs such as cocaine. Given that cannabis is arguably safer than legal alcohol, it makes no sense to waste scarce resources on failed drug policies that finance organised crime and facilitate the use of hard drugs. Drug policy reform may send the wrong message to children, but I like to think the children are more important than the message. Robert Sharpe, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington DC, US - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake