A REAL WAR ON DRUGS

The Swiss government is now peddling heroin to its hard-core addicts.
Since 1994, the Swiss government has used a heroin prescription
program that enables doctors to provide heroin junkies with a strictly
controlled dosage of heroin everyday.

Shockingly enough, this program has succeeded in controlling the
nation's drug problem beyond the government's wildest dreams.

The Swiss pilot program--recently made permanent by a nationwide
referendum on the issue--has saved the nation money, decreased crime
rates, and halted the spread of infectious disease.

At first glance, this initiative, which initially passed in March
2008, may seem a little ridiculous. Indeed, it was accepted amidst
much controversy; a group of conservative politicians forced a
national referendum to try and defeat the program.

On our side of the pond, the United States government has criticized
the program for supposedly enabling drug abuse.

The many successes of this fourteen year-old program, however, have
demonstrated that the Swiss policy might actually be a good idea.

The heroin program, funded in large part by the $22 million per year
spent on health insurance in Switzerland , is offered in twenty-three
centers across the nation, where nearly 1,300 addicts receive
carefully measured doses of heroin daily.

Of course, not just any addict can go to a center and obtain
heroin.

Only hard-core junkies--that is, addicts who have been using for years
and have previously tried and failed to quit--are allowed to
participate in the program.

All qualms about making this narcotic available to the masses are
invalid as the addicts who receive the heroin doses are not only
specially selected, but also must take their doses while in the center.

These centers provide addicts with their own equipment and clean
needles, along with psychiatrists and social workers to uncover the
underlying reason for the substance abuse and to establish whether or
not the addicts will be able to maintain a regular job. The heroin
program exists not to facilitate drug abuse, but to reduce the damage
that the addicted may both be subject to and cause.

In doing so, the initiative also benefits to non-users through
increased health, justice, and law-enforcement expenditures. The crime
activity so typical of junkies has declined greatly since the
inception of the heroin program.

Addicts, by virtue of their addiction, are bound to engage in any sort
of behavior, be it healthy or destructive, to obtain their drug of
choice.

When this drug of choice--heroin in this case--is given to them in
controlled doses by the government, the drug-related crime rate drops.

Keeping addicts in the program and off the streets has proven to be a
fiscally and socially responsible solution to a complex problem.

These benefits have been visible to nearly everyone.

Public parks in Switzerland are no longer infested with heroin abusers
and urban centers are no longer full of scattered "shooting
galleries," which enable dangerous habits like needle-sharing and
foster environments where criminals thrive.

Thus, the intiative is win-win, both for durg users and non-users in
Switzerland.

From a medical standpoint, the Swiss program minimizes the risks to
heroin users and non-users alike.

Thanks to the sanitary injection rooms and equipment, infection
contraction and death also decreases. The risk of overdosing also
diminishes because when presented with an almost unlimited amount of
heroin per day--up to 300 milligrams, three times a day--addicts
quickly realize that a maximum dose does not necessarily result in the
same 'flash' that a lower dose does, and thus, decrease their heroin
intake voluntarily.

The heroin program has not only rehabilitated former junkies; it has
also enabled the Swiss government to learn about patterns of drug
abuse and addiction.

Researchers at the Zurich Department of Social Welfare have discovered
the exact mechanisms by which heroin junkies become addicted and have
devised more comprehensive solutions for treatment and rehabilitation.
Were it not for this program, these findings would have been much more
difficult to come by.

Switzerland is waging--and winning--a real war on drugs, instead of
losing a war on drug users.

The United States ought to step back and examine the Swiss program as
a solution to its own narcotics problems. At the very least, it could
refrain from criticizing the Swiss.