DENMARK'S JUNKIES GET METHADONE

I wish to add a few comments to the letters appearing in Postbag on Aug 2
and 4 which touched on drug laws in Denmark.

It is true that a government-authorised system of supplying methadone - not
heroin - to drug users has existed in Denmark for a number of years. The
users are long-time addicts who wish to stop using heroin but cannot without
a chemical substitute. However, methadone is no less addictive than heroin,
and several thousand Danish junkies are using methadone on a more or less
permanent basis.

This has not stopped the distribution and use of heroin. On the contrary,
Denmark apparently has a high incidence of death among heroin users compared
to other countries.

In 1999, there was a nationwide debate on the potential benefits of the
government's supplying heroin to users. The debate was sparked off by an
experiment with the free supply of drugs to addicts in Switzerland. It was
argued that in this way pushers would be bypassed and even driven out of
business, and therefore there would be no new users. This last argument
seems doubtful.

Government-supplied heroin to junkies would very likely make junkies less
dependent on crime in order to buy heroin, and the spread of HIV and other
diseases by shared needles would lessen. But there is strong resistance to
the idea of free heroin, and no change in the law is, I think, imminent.

Lars Jorgensen, Phnom Penh