HEROIN SUBSIDY PUSHES ADDICTS OFF THE STREETS

IN FRANKFURT, the financial heart of continental Europe, many roads lead to
oblivion.

You can shoot up behind a dustbin, you can curl up on a stairwell. Or you
can walk past the shining glass headquarters of Germany's leading banks and
enter a pleasant room with potted plants and, at state expense, pump
yourself full of heroin.

Bernie is a junkie commuter. He takes the free minibus "The Dream Bus,"
he calls it from the railway station to the east of the city. At a large
councilrun house, he can inject himself. "You can stay a bit longer
there. And it's got wall mirrors." He points to his neck, the only body
part left where he can still stab his syringe. The halogen lights, the
magnifying mirrors, make it easier to find the vein.

"Been here before?" a social worker asks a man of 23 or 24, a debutant in
the new regulated world of heroin addiction. There is a form to be signed,
testifying that he is over 18, that he is not on a methadone cure, and that
(this being Germany) he will obey the rules. Bernie, impatient for his fix,
shifts from foot to foot waiting for the youth to be initiated. A plastic
bowl is handed over, together with the ingredients of a fix: ascorbic
acid, distilled water, part of a tampon to act as a filter, a spoon, a
syringe and some cooking salt. Now it's Bernie's turn.

Policy on hard drugs across Europe is on the cusp of a revolution. In
Zurich, addicts are given heroin on prescription and injected on
citysubsidised premises. A council employee stands by as the addict
injects; doctors are on hand; the exact dose is monitored on a computer. In
The Netherlands, from next May, city authorities in Amsterdam and Rotterdam
will start giving heroin to addicts in a trial run. And in German cities
such as Hamburg and Stuttgart, drug experts are pressing for similar
schemes to that in Frankfurt: no heroin handouts not yet but a
controlled environment for harddrug abusers. If there is a debate about
marijuana in Germany, it centres on whether one should be allowed to smoke
and drive. Harddrug addiction is the problem, and so that is where
solutions are being sought.

"We started in 1993," said Regina Ernst, Frankfurt city's drug specialist.
There are four consumption rooms and they are used for about 770 fixes a
week. "There have been clear advantages, in terms of hygiene, and in
providing a stressfree, lowrisk place to inject. We have also helped to
take addicts off the streets, so this is welcomed by residents and
shopkeepers." Frankfurt and Zurich are synonymous with wealth. Yet both are
junkie cities, heroin dealers outnumbering share dealers.

It is easy to deduce why city elders have been willing to experiment with
harddrug policy. Boutique owners do not like comatose addicts sprawled in
their doorways; innercity residents are tired of paying for private
security companies to drag overdosing teenagers out of pedestrian
precincts. Thus, out of a sense of decorum, a concern for property prices
and turnover, solid burghers are supporting statesubsidised heroin rooms.
The Forsa Institute found that 52 per cent of Germans favour the
"consumption rooms". The approval rating in Switzerland is around 70 per
cent.