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Liberal policy leads to drop in new Swiss drug addicts

Posted on: Friday, 2 June 2006, 10:17 CDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Switzerland's liberal policy of offering drug addicts substitution treatments has results in a drop in the number of new heroin users, according to research published on Friday.

People taking up the habit dropped 82 percent from 850 in 1990 to 150 in 2002 in the canton of Zurich thanks to policies such as needle-exchange services and methadone programs.

Dr Carlos Nordt, of the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich, said the declining figures reflect similar trends throughout the Alpine nation.

"We have seen the number of new heroin users drop very impressively," he added.

Critics of the liberal drugs policy have warned that providing medical treatment with methadone would attract new users. But Nordt said he found no evidence to support the argument.

"Heroin seems to have become a 'loser drug', with its attractiveness fading for young people," he said in a report in The Lancet medical journal.

Nordt and Rudolf Stohler analyzed information on more than 7,000 patients in Zurich who had substitution treatment with methadone or buprenorphine to get them off heroin. The research covers a 13-year period.

While heroin use has risen in other European countries, the researchers said their results show a decline. But although fewer people are trying heroin the overall number of addicts has only declined by four percent. There is also a very low cessation rate.

"This is a long-long condition for some," Nordt said, adding that the overall number of heroin users has remained more or less stable.

Source: REUTERS

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