WHO CAUTIOUS ON SWISS EXPERIMENT

BERN, Switzerland - Switzerland says its controversial program to
give heroin to addicts leads to health gains, but those claims must be
tested carefully before other countries copy the program, a
U.N.-sponsored study concluded Friday.

The World Health Organization, under whose auspices 16 independent
experts examined the Swiss program, said the approach should be
considered only in rich countries and under rigorous scrutiny.

The Swiss government, which has said the heroin program both improves
health and reduces crime, released the study Friday. The U.N. health
and drug control agencies declined to comment beyond the WHO statement.

The Swiss put the heroin program on a permanent legal footing last
year, four years after the first experimental distributions.

People who were given "prescribed heroin evidenced significant
improvement in their physical and mental health over 18 months," said
the 15- page study by the health, drug and legal experts, all from
outside Switzerland.

But the absence from Swiss studies of a control group not given the
drug made it impossible to judge whether the heroin prescription was a
factor in that improvement, they said.

The Swiss experience showed that "it is medically feasible to
prescribe intravenous heroin as a maintenance drug," the report said.

The experts were convened under the auspices of the Vienna-based
International Narcotics Control Board and WHO, headquartered in Geneva.

WHO said there were "limitations to the interpretations of the
results" from the Swiss studies and that the findings couldn't be
generalized. Heroin prescription "should not be considered as a proven
therapeutic alternative for heroin addicts."

Any future experiments should be considered only where the health
system is "sufficiently well resourced to provide the very high levels
of service delivery and control that are necessary."

There are an estimated 30,000 hard drug addicts in Switzerland, one of
the highest rates in Europe. But unlike many countries, the death
toll has been falling.

Last year, 209 drug-related deaths were reported, down from a peak of
419 in 1992.

A three-year Swiss study said the project slashed crime, misery and
death associated with the hard-core drug scene.

In 1997, voters overwhelmingly endorsed the government's liberal drug
policies, including the distribution program.

But in a referendum last November, they rejected just as forcefully a
left-wing coalition's proposal to decriminalize the consumption,
possession and cultivation of all drugs, soft and hard.

Swiss voters go to the polls in June to decide again on the program's
future.