Posted on 06/03/2006 12:37:09 PM PDT by 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."
The available evidence says that treatment socialism works better than criminalization socialism ... and I know of no reason to doubt that.
Don't forget this one.
Any libertarian who supports Switzerland's heroin maintence program.
Again, we're basing this on the Swiss study.
Let it be understood that the study was conducted in Zurich, where heroin was already legal in Needle Park and the problem was already out of control. The study does not show that treatment enrollments have gone down, only that they haven't risen since 1996, when heroin use in Zurich was an epidemic because of the Needle Park experiment.
So this study merely shows that treatment socialism may have, for the moment, stopped the bleeding caused by the 1987 decriminalization in Zurich.
Now, if you're comparing Switzerland to the US when you say "more successful", you're comparing apples to oranges. Switzerland isn't America. It's not even New Jersey.
To KnowYourRights/MrLeRoy...
I lived there before, during, and after the crisis of heroin addicts in Zurich.
Believe me, having your city as a mecca for heroin addicts and dealers ruins it very fast. Whatever you think about the treatment program, it obviously turned away the dealers from the streets of Zurich, and stopped a lot of the crime and public nuisance. I remember seeing people shooting up in the park where I pushed my baby on the swing. I saw the used needles lying around, the trash and the urine and the graffiti. It's back to being a beautiful city again now.
The psychology of the treatment program is not bad. Instead of being "cool," hanging out and being a "chic" heroin addict, all counter-culture and fun, it is now a way to declare about yourself "I have a mental illness for which I seek constant treatment." Hardly an attractive quality.
That would be Austria.
Do any such exist?
It went down during some period: "They found that the incidence of heroin use dropped from 850 new users in 1990 to 150 in 2002."
Switzerland isn't America.
True ... but still the available evidence says that treatment socialism works better than criminalization socialism.
No, an "obsession" with freedom.
and that you are probably a pro-drug activist since it's about all you ever seem to post?
I don't know of any other subject where freedom is so vigorously argued against on FR.
Why would a supposedly non-drug using person be so caught up in advocating them to others
More lies ... I have never advocated drugs to others.
"libertarians allowed themselves to be wholly defined by their pro-drug platform"
The only people who do that are their enemies - I assume you are one. I define them as proponents of limited government, no welfare, personal choice, privacy, & property rights. I don't believe the Dems or Pubs are for those things?
"Switzerland is absolutely a nanny-state for junkies."
So is the USA, EU, Australia, etc. Look in the Yellow Pages - it's in there". Nothing new here.
"libertarians are on board with it"
I didn't see ANY reference to libertarians in the article. Can you cite a legitimate source article? I'd like to read it. Otherwise, you might as well be talking about zebras, & you'd be fundamentally wrong there, too.
Besides, the Dems & Pubs have supported "drug treatment" centers for years, so to single out the libertarians, who hold virtually no positions of power in the US or Switzerland, as somehow responsible is ludicrous.
OBTW, I'm an Independent, not a Libertarian. I do agree with most of their domestic platform, but their foreign policy platform seems to ignore iminent threats. If you read their platform(www.lp.org), they support PRIVATE treatment ONLY.
You'd be incorrect in that assumption. I'd love to be done with the Republican Party, but the libertarians aren't a viable option. Largely because of the drug platform, and the kind of constituency it attracts. I've lived in Southern California since my mid 20's, and pretty much every head I've ever known (I'm in the A/V industry, I've known a bunch) considered himself a libertarian.
It's my opinion that the libertarians have become more of a pro-drug movement and less of a limited government party in recent years. I don't have any data to back it up, and I don't have any evidence linking them to George Soros or NORMAL. It's just an observation, made in the course of the conversation.
I didn't see ANY reference to libertarians in the article.
I'm talking about the libertarians in the thread. I'm pretty sure the Swiss don't even know what a libertarian party is.
That's what it says to you. Not me.
Are you a libertarian?
So 492 out of 500 posts are all about drugs because for you drugs = freedom?
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