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 illicit heroin use.

The success of the Swiss programme has inspired heroin maintenance pilot projects in Canada, Germany, Spain, Denmark 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 addiction.

Cannabis should be taxed and regulated like alcohol, only without the ubiquitous advertising. Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as organised crime controls cannabis distribution, consumers will continue to come into contact with sellers of addictive drugs like cocaine.

Given that cannabis is arguably safer than legal alcohol – the plant has never been shown to cause an overdose death – it makes no sense to waste tax revenue on failed policies that finance organised 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.

For information on the efficacy of heroin maintenance please read the following British Medical Journal report:

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7410/310

To learn more about Canada’s heroin maintenance research visit www.naomistudy.ca