Swiss Okay Controlled Heroin Distribution

The upper house of the Swiss Parliament this week (10/9)

approved a plan which will allow doctors to prescribe heroin

to long-term addicts. The plan, which passed by a vote of

30-4, comes on the heels of a successful three-year trial in

which 1,100 Swiss heroin addicts were offered regular access to the opiate in a clinical setting.

The results of the Swiss trial showed that among enrollees,

homelessness and crime fell significantly, employment rose,

drug use stabilized or declined, and many participants

voluntarily entered treatment. (You can find the Swiss

Report online at .)

Opiate maintenance is a promising addition to currently

accepted modalities for dealing with addiction, but it is

also politically controversial. Soon after the results of

the Swiss trial were released, the Australian government

indicated that it was interested in launching a similar

experiment. Just days before approving that protocol,

however, Australian Prime Minister Howard nixed the plan.

It was later revealed in the Australian press that the U.S.

State Department had threatened to have the United Nations Office of Drug Control Policy shut down Tasmania's legal opiate industry if the plan went ahead. (See

http://www.drcnet.org/wol/004.html#blackmail for further

background.)

But despite the pressure being applied by the U.S., at least

three nations (Germany, The Netherlands and Great Britain)

are currently in various stages of discussion or action with

regard to heroin maintenance. Proposals have also been

presented in Canada. In September, a conference on opiate

maintenance was held at the New York Academy of Medicine that was attended by over 125 people from more than a dozen countries.

Ty Trippet, spokesman for The Lindesmith Center, a drug

policy think tank in New York, told The Week Online, "This

action by the Swiss reaffirms that governments can, in fact,

deal rationally with issues such as opiate maintenance. The

evidence is clear that stripped of political and moralist

rhetoric, there is a case to be made for a whole range of

modalities in dealing with addiction. The Swiss Parliament

acted out of concern for their citizens, and after three

years of clinical experience during their trials, there is

every reason to believe that they have voted responsibly."

Switzerland itself faced an internal challenge to its

burgeoning harm reductionist drug policy in September of

1997 when a group calling itself "Youth Against Drugs"

placed a referendum on the ballot which would have sent the country back to a punitive, rather than a public health

approach to substance use. That referendum was defeated at the polls, however, by a margin of 71% to 29%, giving Swiss officials the political leeway they needed to move forward.

The current plan is expected to take effect this Saturday

and estimates are that at least 2,000 Swiss citizens will

soon be receiving heroin legally.