Swiss to vote on State heroin

luckat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7755664.stm

Voters in Switzerland go to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to make a controversial heroin prescription programme a permanent, nationwide health policy.

The Swiss government supports the idea but opponents say it encourages drug addiction, and sends the wrong message to young people.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s Switzerland had one of the highest rates of heroin addiction in Europe.

Open drug scenes in cities such as Zurich, Basel and Bern were common, with addicts injecting and dealers selling publicly in the streets and parks.

Users often shared needles, leading to a sharp rise in HIV infection rates, and in the spread of Hepatitis.

In an attempt to reduce the spread of such diseases, if nothing else, the Swiss health department began introducing needle exchanges, followed by clean injection rooms where addicts could take heroin in a safe environment, supervised by a nurse.

<snip>

(much argument snipped)

Doctors like Christoph Buerki accept that their patients will be with them for many years to come. Instead he points to another, unexpected side effect of the programme.

heroin clinic, Bern
The heroin clinic dispels any myth of heroin being glamorous

"Heroin was a very 'in' and fashionable thing to do in the 1980s and early 1990s," he explains. "But now people who take heroin have the image of losers, of junkies.

"I mean look at this place," he says, gesturing to his small, rather run-down clinic, and the lines of patients, most of them middle aged, waiting for injections.

"Nobody thinks this is a good thing - it's not cool to go to a clinic like ours to get heroin twice a day.

"We've medicalised heroin in Switzerland - it has the image of an ugly illness, and that is why, I think, numbers of new addicts are falling.

Very few young people are turning to heroin in Switzerland these days."

And that is the argument that may well sway many Swiss voters.

Keeping hundreds of people on heroin through old age and right to the ends of their lives is a rather shocking prospect, but polls suggest the Swiss may accept it, if it means their streets are free of illegal drug use, and their young people see heroin not as a glamorous rock star's drug, but as a sad, banal, old people's habit.

No not up for it really the thing,the subsitute (methadone) should be enough for them giving straight heroin gives the wrong idea. walk into the doctors and askin for their hits,they`l be gettin robbed more often than usual.

MooseJam

sounds good to me, heroin for all i say

brianthebard

Deleted User wrote: »

No not up for it really the thing,the subsitute (methadone) should be enough for them giving straight heroin gives the wrong idea. walk into the doctors and askin for their hits,they`l be gettin robbed more often than usual.

Why would a junkie go to the effort of robbing the place if they are being given the heroin twice a day? Silly argument tbh.

Sam Vimes

MooseJam wrote: »

sounds good to me, heroin for all i say

heroin for some, miniature american flags for others.


great idea btw

javaboy

brianthebard wrote: »

Why would a junkie go to the effort of robbing the place if they are being given the heroin twice a day? Silly argument tbh.

"Tis my heroin Fether. I just didn't want to fill out the forms."

KnifeWRENCH

It's an interesting idea - there's no point wasting methadone on them if they are beyond recovery.

If it will stabilise addicts and lead to less drug-related crime, then it's a good idea.

Terry

I'm really tempted ot add an "e" to the end of the thread title.

Aside from that, 10,000 scumbags in Dublin alone say yes to this.

This scumbag here says no.
We are not Swiss and anyone getting addicted to heroin deserves to live a crappy life.

Only a complete idiot would take it to begin with and I just see this as natures way of cleansing the gene pool.

Allow me to use the fight or flight response as an analogy.

At the dawn of man, there were three types of people.
Those who would fight, those who would run and those who would stand there and do nothing in the face of danger.

Some of thos who fought survived.
Some of those who ran survived.
All of those who stood there and did nothing died.
This is why it's called the fight or flight response and not the fight or flight or stand there and do nothing response.

Heroin addicts are the modern version of those who stood there and did nothing.
They are like the people of Pompeii.
Volcano? GTFO. The gods are just angry and the wife just made dinner. I'm not going anywhere. The gods will save me.


They are people who take a drug so that they can stop caring about life and the responsibilities that life brings.
They are selfish people who do not care about anything except for that next hit and they will do anything to get that next hit. Anything to escape from responsibility.

It is a horrible drug that takes over your life and everyone in the country (apart from the small few poor bastards who are unfortunate enough to be brought up by heroin addicts) is taught from a young age that it is highly addictive.
Now we'll get someone here who brings up the 'reefer madness arguement' in which they will state that people only take heroin because weed isn't addictive and that because their parents lied to them about that, they decided to take heroin because that story may have been a lie too.
Well that's just crap.

Anyone who has ever seen a heroin addict has clearly seen how messed up they are.

This isn't because of bad heroin, it's because they are so off their faces most of the time that they really don't do anything else. They don't eat properly, they don't wash themselves and they just generally lie around all day off their tits.

The thought of rewarding these people for their stupidity and their selfishness turns my stomach.

There are people in this country who cannot afford proper medical care due to whatever circumstances thery may be in, and are on never ending waiting lists, yet these scumbags are given methadone for nothing.
Some of them then sell the methadone to the next generation of idiots and the cycle begins again.

Now don't get me wrong. I do have some sympathy for the heroin addicts I know.
I feel sorry that they ended up in that cycle, but at the end of the day they all knew what they were getting themselves into and it takes a great amount of stupidity to do that in the first place.

Let those who decide to opt out of life die in the gutters.
They don't care about you, so why should you care about them?

Sam Vimes

Terry wrote: »

This isn't because of bad heroin, it's because they are so off their faces most of the time that they really don't do anything else. They don't eat properly, they don't wash themselves and they just generally lie around all day off their tits.

The thought of rewarding these people for their stupidity and their selfishness turns my stomach.

but at least if they're getting it for free they're not funding organised crime and robbing people to get their fix.

Simtech

These people rob you! It's a matter of minimising their effect on the rest of us. It's harm reduction and a reasonable response. The fact remains that prohibition is ineffective, a waste of resources. Prescribing takes criminal suppliers out of the market.

KnifeWRENCH

Terry - I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I too have very little to no sympathy for heroin addcits and for anyone to get addicted in this day and age is beyond the realms of stupidity.

But I don't think the objective of this scheme is to reward heroin addicts, it's more to try and prevent them from resorting to burglary and violence to get money to get their fix from a dealer. It's more about protecting society in general than protecting the addicts themselves.

Terry

Sam Vimes wrote: »

but at least if they're getting it for free they're not funding organised crime and robbing people to get their fix.

It's not really free.
It's paid for by your taxes.

Simtech wrote: »

These people rob you! It's a matter of minimising their effect on the rest of us. It's harm reduction and a reasonable response. The fact remains that prohibition is ineffective, a waste of resources. Prescribing takes criminal suppliers out of the market.

Imagine your average gangland importer and his muppets.
do you really think they would go out and get a job if heroin was legalised?

Not a chance.
They would just sell a different drug.
Crack is already making inroads in this country and crystal meth isn't far behind.
You are talking about people with no morals here.
They don't give a crap if it's heroin or crack or ice or whatever. They only care about they money they make.

square_igloo wrote: »

Terry - I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I too have very little to no sympathy for heroin addcits and for anyone to get addicted in this day and age is beyond the realms of stupidity.

But I don't think the objective of this scheme is to reward heroin addicts, it's more to try and prevent them from resorting to burglary and violence to get money to get their fix from a dealer. It's more about protecting society in general than protecting the addicts themselves.

It is a reward.
You are just going to get a whole generation of people buying street heroin, getting addicted and then going to their local clinic and getting the crap free.

The only solution is to target the growers of this crap and hit that country with economic sanctions until they completely eradicate the growth of poppys.

That may sound harsh, but it is the only way to eradicate heroin.
Making it freely available will only encourage more people to do it.

javaboy

Terry wrote: »

Imagine your average gangland importer and his muppets.
do you really think they would go out and get a job if heroin was legalised?

Not a chance.
They would just sell a different drug.
Crack is already making inroads in this country and crystal meth isn't far behind.

+1. And then we'll have people arguing that since crack is so widespread, we should legalise that too because "at least they won't be robbing and funding organised crime etc."

It's a slippery slope.

Mr.S wrote: »

Didn't they already do this in a single area, and the place was just over run with junkies it had to be stoped?

Well in fairness they should have seen that coming. Any pilot scheme for this idea should be very heavily restricted.

EamonnKeane

Deleted User wrote: »

No not up for it really the thing,the subsitute (methadone) should be enough for them giving straight heroin gives the wrong idea. walk into the doctors and askin for their hits,they`l be gettin robbed more often than usual.

1. have you ever been a junkie? how would you know if methadone was "enough"?

2. Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg? They already have codeine, morphine etc. in the chemists, I don't think that gets robbed much.

Senna

EamonnKeane wrote: »

1. have you ever been a junkie? how would you know if methadone was "enough"?

The poor babies, is that not enough?? we'll have to sort that out:rolleyes:

Could they not just put some slow acting poison in the Herion they give them, its not like any innocent by-stander will be poisoned, and they'd be doing the world a favour.

brianthebard

javaboy wrote: »

+1. And then we'll have people arguing that since crack is so widespread, we should legalise that too because "at least they won't be robbing and funding organised crime etc."

It's a slippery slope.



Well in fairness they should have seen that coming. Any pilot scheme for this idea should be very heavily restricted.

They're already on the slippery slope, how much further can they slide?

luckat

A lot of emotional replies with more heat than light.

The Swiss idea seems eminently sensible to me. It gives people a chance to stabilise their lives, and takes them out of the ambit of cruel criminals. And the effect has been to lower heroin use.

Ardent

I think it's a good idea - the end goal here is to reduce the level of crime associated with junkies looking to fund their next fix.

luckat

The Swiss voted 'yes' on this.

The good thing about this programme is that it brings the fiends in to where they can be helped to get off the stuff and get work and so on, if that's what they want.

If they aren't capable of getting off it, or don't want to, they can be kept away from the criminal networks that surround illegal drugs, taking away the blood flow that keeps those networks alive.

Heinrich

The Swiss come up with some good ideas and that is why the country works well. Let's keep our ways here with all the scumbags and skangers and never look at other countries which might be able to provide answers to our problems.

The stats mentioned that Switzerland has the highest heroin addiction in Europe... They don't say how the stats are compiled. With our blinkered views we don't seem to understand the complete mess we are in.

TomCo

Senna wrote: »

Could they not just put some slow acting poison in the Herion they give them

I think the "Herion" is poisonous enough.

Prof.Badass

yes, someone who takes heroin deserves all the misery it brings. But they don't deserve the extra misery we bring upon them. I don't think Terry understands that in switzerland these people get their injection and then go on with their lives back to their jobs and loving families whereas here they'd be homeless junkies stealing to get money for their next fix.


Of all drugs, opiates don't create much problems (no impaired judegent, no psychosis, no physical damage) when compared to other drugs. It's not really a problem provided these people keep getting their fix. People get given prescription opiates all the time, is it really worth all the damage we are causing by not giving this medicine to a few more people?

I'm not saying we should all take heroin (far from it- i'd rather get the downs so i can appreciate the ups) but addiction to heroin needn't cause the huge problems it causes today. ciggarettes are equally addidtive and look how relatively problem-free they are (besides health problems obviously coz the heroin would be way safer).

Heroin is cheap as $hit to produce, so if we can rid of all the crime associated with it, why not? We need to protect ourselves from the junkies and this is the only way how (btw heroin usage has dropped significantly in switzerland since they brought this in).