Swiss electorate back pharmaceutical Heroin treatment method for addicts.

Up until the mid 1960s Heroin addict who lived in England were treated by what was known as the English Method. Basically what this entailed was the addict was provided by there GP with a weekly prescription for pharmaceutical Heroin, which would meet his/her daily needs. In return they were expected to get on with their lives in a law abiding and productive manner, if they failed to do this the prescription would be withdrawn. This the overwhelming majority of addicts did, remember this was long before highly political members of the medical profession came up with the theory that all drug addicts were either mad, sad, or bad.

Many people who were Heroin addict and treated under this method went on to lead successful careers in a host of differing jobs and professions, including the medical profession. The English system was eventually abolished in the mid 1960s after a media witch hunt against addicts and a small number of doctors who prescribed recklessly. This witch-hunt was led by people like the TV pundit and game show host David Frost, who partially made his name out of the misery he helped create by bringing the English system crashing down.

In its place the government put a system of drug dependency units (DDU) which were attached to the psychiatric units of large general hospitals and many of these DDU are still in place to this day. It is not an exaggeration to say it has been downhill all the way since the abolition of the English method, with drug addicts becoming demonized for many of society’s ills and by making it illegal for the overwhelming majority of doctors to prescribe heroin to addicts, it has caused an explosion of the black market, which hardly existed prior to the abolition of the English System.

One of the motors that drove the campaign to change England’s liberal attitude towards heroin addicts was the prohibitionist attitude of the US government, which had a strategy of not tolerating, no matter where it was in the world, any drug treatment program that was not based on total prohibition; and used international organizations like the UN and World Health Organization to exert its will and continuos to do so right up to this day.

During the 1980’s and early 90’s the Swiss government realized they had a Heroin epidemic on their hands and concluded that prohibition simply was not working. They looked back to the English method for answers and eventually implemented a program where Heroin addicts who have been through various withdrawal and detoxification programs without success, were given pharmaceutical heroin to meet their needs under controlled conditions.

The results were both startling and successful, whereas seeing heroin addicts who had lost all self respect, shooting up in public parks was once a common occurrence in Swiss cities, this was no longer the case. The levels of drug related crime has dropped considerable and the health of long term addicts has improved immensely with many returning to the world of work.

However encouraged by US and UN diplomats, right wing Swiss politicians challenged the governments decision to make the heroin treatment program permanent and forced a referendum under Switzerland's system of direct democracy. Fortunately, as many of those of us who oppose ridged illicit drug laws have often claimed, the public are far more liberal on such matters than mainstream politicians claim; and the Swiss electorate rejected ending the pioneering drug treatment program by a large majority with 68% approving it, making the Heroin prescriptions program permanent.

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