In Switzerland, a legalized heroin program

Not so many years ago while I was living in Europe, I had to go to get some papers signed at the Spanish consulate in Zurich, Switzerland. When I was ready to leave, being a nice sunny day I decided to walk to the train station cutting across one of the parks just across from the consulate. This happened maybe around 11am, and before I knew I was walking among a large group of young people injecting themselves with drugs. I have to admit it was not a very pleasant situation and a little worrisome. And yet in Zurich, in the 80’s and 90’s it was a common experience. Youth from many areas of Switzerland and other countries knew they could use drugs with impunity in that Swiss city. Of course when the problem got out of hand and the citizens of that and other Swiss cities where that happened complained it had to be solved. By then the authorities knew something had to be done to reduce crime created by this and to improve the health and lives of the addicts . With this in mind a heroin program started in 1994. A program that was offered in 23 centers across Switzerland with enough success to have the Swiss voters cast their ballots in a referendum last Sunday to decide if the program should be made permanent. The result was that sixty-eight percent of the 2.26 million Swiss voters said yes.
The way the program works is that those addicts who had not been helped by other therapies and are selected to participate, nearly 1300, visit one of the centers twice a day to receive the carefully measured dose of heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory. They keep their paraphernalia in cups labeled with their names and use the equipment and clean needles to inject themselves under the supervision of a nurse. The program offers as well counseling from psychiatrists and social workers to help the addicts learn how to function in society. And what is quite important the program which costs about $22 million a year is being paid by health insurance. In Switzerland all residents are required to have health insurance with the government paying insurance premiums for those who cannot afford it.
The United States and the UN narcotics board have criticized the program believing that it could fuel drug abuse but it has attracted the attention of governments as far from Switzerland as Australia and Canada. In Europe the Netherlands started a smaller program in 2006 and Belgium, Germany, Spain and Canada have been running trial programs.