SWITZERLAND SET TO APPROVE PRESCRIPTION HEROIN AS 'SAFE ALTERNATIVE'
FOR ADDICTS

A pioneering Swiss programme aimed to curb drug abuse by providing
addicts with a clean, safe place to take heroin is expected to be made
permanent by voters in a referendum on Sunday.

The programme has been criticized by the United States and the U.N.
narcotics board, which said it would fuel drug abuse.

But governments as far away as Australia are beginning or considering
their own systems modeled on the Swiss one, which is credited with
reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts.

It has won wide support within Switzerland since it began 14 years ago
to eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly
in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and 1990s.

Dr. Daniele Zullino's office, part of the Geneva University Hospitals,
is one of 23 such centres in Switzerland.

The heroin is produced by a government-approved laboratory. Among the
nearly 1,300 addicts whom other therapies have failed to help,
patients take doses carefully measured to satisfy their cravings but
not enough to cause a big high. Four at a time inject themselves as a
nurse watches.

'Heroin prescription is not an end in itself,' said Dr. Zullino,
noting that the 47 addicts who come to his office receive a series of
additional treatments, such as therapy with a psychiatrist and
counseling by social workers.

'The aim is that the patients learn how to function in society,' he
said, adding that after participating in it for two to three years,
one-third of the patients start abstinence-programmes and one-third
change to methadone treatment.

'Thanks to this policy we don't have open drug scenes anymore,' said
Andreas Kaesermann, a spokesman for the Social Democrat Party, part of
the coalition government.

A mid-November survey of 1,209 voters by the respected gfs Bern
research institute indicated it will be easily approved, with 63 per
cent of voters favouring it compared with 21 per cent opposed.

Health insurance pays for the bulk of it, which costs 26 million Swiss
francs ($22 million) a year. All residents in Switzerland are required
to have health insurance, with the government paying insurance
premiums for those who cannot afford it.

'It's wrong that the health insurance pays for this,' said Alain
Hauert, spokesman for the right-wing Swiss People's Party. He said the
state should invest more money in prevention and law
enforcement.

Crimes committed by heroin addicts have dropped 60 per cent since it
began in 1994, according to the Federal Office of Public Health.

Dr Zullino said patients reduce consumption of other narcotics once
they start the programme and suffer less from psychiatric disorders.

But, he added, 'the idea has never been to liberalize heroin. It's
considered a medicine and used as such.'