FRANCE TOUTS A DRUG POLICY OF PRAGMATISM

PARIS -- When it comes to mandating treatment for drug addicts, French
leaders have a tip for Americans: They've been there, done that and found
out it's not the answer.

Not by itself, anyway. "We tried that in France already," said Nicole
Maestracci, head of the nation's drug-control office. "Compulsory
treatment doesn't work. If you take care of the drug problem but don't
give a person a chance to change his life, he will go back to the drugs."

Instead, French authorities have taken what they consider a more
pragmatic approach to drug policy. While voluntary and court-ordered
treatment, as well as education and prevention, are still part of the
national strategy, they've also implemented a controversial policy
known as harm reduction.

Harm reduction is simply the philosophy that people are going to use
drugs no matter what anyone does. So, to keep those people from
succumbing to the dangers of use -- overdoses, AIDS and criminal
lifestyles -- the government gives them a means to satisfy their habit
safely. In France, a nation with an estimated 175,000 heroin addicts,
that means needle exchanges, government-subsidized Subutex (a
methadone alternative) and safe places to shoot up. Maestracci said it
has contributed to fewer overdose deaths and a decreasing AIDS
infection rate. France also has a much lower crime rate than the
United States, which experts there attribute, in part, to the easy
availability of Subutex.

In 1970, lawmakers passed an act that mandated treatment options for
those arrested on drug use charges. That sparked 20 years of arguments
over the best way to implement the policy.

Then, in the early '90s, with AIDS becoming a national epidemic,
France began to consider needle exchanges. That led to talk of heroin
substitutions and eventually to the new policy of harm reduction.

But Florida state drug czar Jim McDonough said he doesn't think it is
anything more than a temporary solution.

"It's a formula for disaster to buy into the harm-reductionist
approach," he said.

McDonough said programs such as needle exchanges would lead to drug
substitution, the same way it did in France, and that would be a
mistake. He said drug maintenance using methadone or Subutex is just
another way for people to be addicted, sometimes for a lifetime.