Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 Source: El Paso Times (TX) Copyright: 2009 El Paso Times Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/formnewsroom Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829 Author: Robert Sharpe Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n026/a08.html Editor's note: The Times received many letters concerning the City Council resolution including language about discussing legalization of drugs. Some of these were written before the resolution veto was upheld. MIDDLE GROUND Regarding your Jan. 8 editorial, there is a middle ground between drug prohibition and blanket legalization. Switzerland's heroin maintenance program has been shown to reduce disease, death and crime among chronic users. Providing addicts with standardized doses in a clinical setting eliminates many of the problems associated with heroin use. Heroin maintenance pilot projects are under way in Canada, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. If expanded, prescription heroin maintenance would deprive organized crime of a core client base. This would render illegal heroin trafficking unprofitable and spare future generations addiction. Marijuana should be taxed and regulated like alcohol, only without the ubiquitous advertising. Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as marijuana distribution is controlled by organized crime, consumers of the most popular illicit drug will continue to come into contact with sellers of addictive drugs. Given that marijuana is arguably safer than legal alcohol, it makes no sense to waste tax dollars on failed policies that finance organized crime and facilitate hard-drug use. 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 policy analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom