SWISS ENSHRINE LEGAL HEROIN PROGRAM

Voters Endorse Drugs-For-Addicts Measure While Rejecting Bid To
Decriminalize Marijuana

GENEVA-The world's most comprehensive legalized heroin program became
permanent yesterday with overwhelming approval from Swiss voters who
also rejected the decriminalization of marijuana.

The heroin program, started in 1994, is offered in 23 centres across
Switzerland. It has helped eliminate scenes of large groups of drug
users shooting up in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and
1990s. The plan is credited with reducing crime and improving the
health and daily lives of addicts.

The nearly 1,300 selected addicts, who unsuccessfully tried other
therapies, visit one of the centres twice a day to receive the
measured dose of heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory.

They keep their paraphernalia in cups labelled with their names and
use the equipment and clean needles to inject themselves - four at a
time - under the supervision of a nurse, and receive counselling from
psychiatrists and social workers.

The aim is to help the addicts learn how to function in
society.

The United States and the UN narcotics board have criticized the
program for potentially fuelling drug abuse, but it has attracted
attention from other governments, which in recent years have started
or are considering their own programs modelled on the system.

The Netherlands started a program in 2006 that serves nearly 600
patients. Britain has allowed individual doctors to prescribe heroin
since the 1920s, and has been running trials similar to the Swiss
approach in recent years. Belgium, Germany, Spain and Canada are
running trial programs too.

Sixty-eight per cent of the 2.3 million Swiss voters approved making
the heroin plan permanent.

By contrast, 63 per cent voted against decriminalizing personal use of
marijuana.