Switzerland's Liberal Drug Policy Seems To Work, Study Says

Medical News Today ^ | 02 Jun 2006 | Joe Santangelo

[Know your rights]

Switzerland's policy of offering heroin addicts substitution treatment with methadone or buprenorphine has led to a decline in the number of new heroin users in Zurich, according to a paper published in this week's issue of The Lancet.

Switzerland has implemented various policies to try and reduce harm to dependent heroin users, including needle-exchange services, low-threshold methadone programmes, and heroin-assisted treatments. However, critics say that these policies may lead to a growing number of new drug users and lengthen the period of heroin addiction.

To investigate, Carlos Nordt and Rudolf Stohler from the Psychiatric University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland analysed data from over 7250 patients in Zurich who presented for substitution treatments with methadone or buprenorphine over 13 years from 1991. From this data they estimated trends in the number of new heroin users. They found that the incidence of heroin use dropped from 850 new users in 1990 to 150 in 2002. The authors contrast the situation with heroin use in the UK, Italy, and Australia, which has continued to rise. They also found a low cessation (quit) rate and therefore, the overall number of heroin dependents, whether in treatment or not, only declined by 4% per year.

Dr Nordt states: "As the Swiss population supported this drug policy, this medicalisation of opiate dependence changed the image of heroin use as a rebellious act to an illness that needs therapy. Finally, heroin seems to have become a 'loser drug', with its attractiveness fading for young people. Nevertheless, whether drug policy had a positive effect on the number of new heroin users or not, our data could not confirm an increase of heroin incidence as expected by the critics of the liberal Swiss drug policy."

[toddlintown]

Switzerland? Don't they make clocks there that go "Coo-Coo?"

[mugs99]

Of course, I realized this would be your reaction as I wrote it
LOL...Of course you did!

I'll show you my sources for welfare dependency statistics when you show me your source for the stats
I posted no statistics. You railed against the statistics used by the researchers. If you'd like a source for any particular fact I've posted, just ask.

FACT: Decriminalization has not led to an increase in drug use in Switzerland or the Netherlands
If you'd like sources for that fact, I can give you statistics, official quotes or both...Your choice.
.

[Know your rights]

the study was originally published in The Lancet. Which is the definitive source for the hard left on Iraqi civilian casualties.

Just because a media outlet calls itself a "medical journal" doesn't means it's above reproach.

How do their articles on Iraqi civilian casualties merit reproach? Just because the left quotes them?

[Know your rights]

Nanny-state & libertarian are mutually exclusive.

That might have been true, before libertarians allowed themselves to be wholly defined by their pro-drug platform. Now, they seem to be attracting users looking to rationalize their own behavior, instead of consitutionally-minded citizens trying to move America towards a more limited government.

So give us an example of libertarians supporting a nanny-state policy.

[Know your rights]

"new" users have increased every year, while in Switzerland they have decreased. Again, they're basing these numbers on junkies who seek substitution treatment [...] Their own evidence could just as easily be used to suggest that more people seek treatment in countries where heroin is criminalized than in countries where it is decriminalized.

No, differences in drug poplicy between different countries cannot explain changing substitution treatment enrollments within a single country.

[Know your rights]

Drug use feeds crime

High drug prices, as fueled by drug criminalization, feed crime.

[philman_36]

Well, at least you're willing to kill 'em quick instead of sending them to prison to be tortured by years of rape.
I guess that's compassion, of some sort.

[Know your rights]

God save us from the "compassion" of Drug Warriors and other liberals.

[philman_36]

Add in the costs of burglaries [to get money to buy high priced drugs]...
Insert appropriately...
[to get money to buy some $bling$ to impress the ladies]
[to get money to pimp my ride]
[to get money to buy some "somethin', somethin'" from that walker on the corner]
[to get money to buy that new CD coming out]
ad infinitum

Burglaries aren't all about drugs.

[philman_36]

And while you're at it, prove that the moon is made of cheese.

[philman_36]

Don't they make clocks there that go "Coo-Coo?"
If they only made one that went "Moo-Moo" instead.

[Know your rights]

Burglaries aren't all about drugs.

I don't think RW meant to imply that they are ... but certainly some are, and those would be substantially reduced if the drug-war-inflated price of drugs came down.

[Know your rights]

Thanks, Ken!

[Know your rights]

Obviously, the findings of a sociologist on the payroll of a parliamentary-socialist government hold more sway with you than I.

So you approach pro-drug-criminalization findings funded by our pro-drug-criminalization federal government with equal skepticism, right?

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

You railed against the statistics used by the researchers. If you'd like a source for any particular fact I've posted, just ask.

I'd like a source for this one:

"Many of their addicts are self supporting and no drain on the taxpayers."

Thanks in advance!

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

So you approach pro-drug-criminalization findings funded by our pro-drug-criminalization federal government with equal skepticism, right?

Absolutely. Check my history, you'll see I'm not a drug warrior. What I am is an anti-socialist. And Switzerland's junkie maintenance program is socialism.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

And while you're at it, prove that the moon is made of cheese.

I'll commission a university study on it first thing in the morning.

[Know your rights]

Check my history, you'll see I'm not a drug warrior.

Good to hear.

What I am is an anti-socialist. And Switzerland's junkie maintenance program is socialism.

True ... but more effective at its stated goal than our drug-war socialism for LEOs, bureaucrats, and drug dealers.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

No, differences in drug poplicy between different countries cannot explain changing substitution treatment enrollments within a single country.

I think the authors of the study are saying the policy in Switzerland has, in fact, changed substitution treatment enrollments. They're saying it's reduced them. They're extrapolating that fewer enrollments equals fewer new users.

What I'm suggesting is the flip side of that logic. Fewer enrollments could just as easily mean that fewer people are motivated to get themselves off heroin since using it is no longer a crime. I'm not saying that is the case, I'm saying it could be. The authors never explored the possibility, or even considered it.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

...but more effective at its stated goal than our drug-war socialism for LEOs, bureaucrats, and drug dealers.

Well, that's what we're in here mixing it up about. Obviously, I'm inherently skeptical of sources that tell me how wonderfully socialist programs are working.

Switzerland is socialism's greatest success story in the modern era. They have an educational system that puts ours to absolute shame, they have universal health care and free treatment for addicts, they have 3% unemployment and no crime to speak of. The place is perfect. Utopian, even. And the more government dependence rises, the better things are for everybody.

Switzerland is the world's poster child for that philosophy.