DRUG SCHEMES FAILING

Drug treatment services for heroin addicts have failed and should be
discontinued, a drugs conference in Dublin was told yesterday.

Several speakers voiced their concern at the continuing emphasis of the
methadone substitution programme offered by health authorities to heroin
addicts.

"We have to adopt a different strategy towards drug abuse or we're looking
at a bleak and desolate future for our young people," said Marie Byrne,
director of the Aisling Group, the Navan based drug treatment centre.

Swedish drugs advisor, Borje Dahl, told the conference that Sweden had make
a major mistake when it introduced a liberal drug policy in the 1960s by
decriminalising many substances. "The numbers of addicts increased and crime
also rose," he observed.

With a more restrictive drugs policy currently in place, the number of young
Swedes using drugs for the first time has fallen from 15% to less than 3%.