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.


Ayse Baybars ’12 is a Crimson editorial editor in Wigglesworth Hall.