HEROIN AND THE SWISS

Letter writer Alan Bryan ("It's not working," Nov. 9) claimed, "The Swiss
have been prescribing heroin to addicts for years, and there have been no
overdose deaths."

Not exactly. Switzerland has some 30,000 heroin addicts. About 1,100
enrolled in a three-year experiment in which the government gave addicts
free heroin to inject three times a day.

Some 350 dropped out of the program; 36 died. Whether they died of an
overdose or some other problem related to their addiction matters little to
these addicts. Dead is dead.

Most of the other claims made for the "success" of the Swiss heroin project
are not supported by the only site, in Geneva, that conducted a scientific,
randomized study. The Geneva researchers actually compared heroin
maintenance with conventional treatment and found that addicts did just as
well in the latter as the former.

What's more, when the Geneva addicts in traditional treatment, who were
serving as controls, could switch to the heroin program six months later,
few did. Why? The addicts said they wanted to stop, not continue, injecting
drugs. (The Geneva study appeared in the July 4 `British Medical Journal.' )

For the past decade, the Swiss have tolerated drug use, particularly heroin
use. As a result, Switzerland now has one of the highest rates of heroin
addiction in Europe.

Sue Rusche, executive director National Families in Action Atlanta