Swiss likely to approve prescription heroin GENEVA (AP) - Dr. Daniele Zullino keeps glass bottles full of white powder in a safe in a locked room of his office. Patients show up each day to receive their treatment in small doses handed through a small window. Then they gather around a table to shoot up, part of a pioneering Swiss program to curb drug abuse by providing addicts a clean, safe place to take heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory. The program has been criticized by the United States and the U.N. narcotics board, which said it would fuel drug abuse. But governments as far away as Australia are beginning or considering their own programs modeled on the system, which is credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts. Swiss voters are expected to make the system permanent Sunday in a referendum prompted by a challenge from conservatives. The heroin program has won wide support within Switzerland since it was begun 14 years ago to eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in parks that marred Swiss cities in the 1980s and 1990s. Zullino's office, part of the Geneva University Hospitals, is one of 23 such centers in Switzerland. Patients among the nearly 1,300 addicts whom other therapies have failed to help take doses carefully measured to satisfy their cravings but not enough to cause a big high. Four at a time inject themselves as a nurse watches. In a few minutes most get up and leave. Those who have jobs go back to work. ... Crimes committed by heroin addicts have dropped 60 percent since the program began in 1994, according to the Federal Office of Public Health says. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94O1B980&show_article=1 ________ ________ ________ In 1919, The U.S. government took alcohol distribution out of the hands of Anheuser-Busch, and gave it to Al Capone. This policy worked out so well for everyone, that they decided to do the exact same thing with drugs.
I can envision this. We'll have three buildings on a block. The first building will distribute heroin. The second building next door, will be for addicts to pick up their check (they can't work). The third building can be NA methadone clinic. The addicts can wander from building to building day and night.
You <i>sure</i> about that? <img src=http://forgottenjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/kurt-cobain-photo.jpg> <img src=http://www.paasautographs.com/images/JerryGarcia.jpg> <img src=http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/1/m/limbaugh_drugs_jail.jpg>
Why can't they work? I've always been pretty open about my use of perscription nactotics (Diluidid (heroin) and MSContin (the morphine version of oxycontin). It's caused me no harm what so ever, and in fact has greated INCREASED the quality of my life. If I did not have perscription narcotics I would not be a fucntioning member of society, rather I would be forced to endure pain on a scale that most people can not imagine. Because I was lucky enough to find a doctor who understands how both pain and addiction work I have not been forced onto the streets for my narcotics as Rearden was. I can say for certain that had it not been for finding a doctor willing to perscribe narcotics to me none of you ever would have heard of me (for better or worse). To think that an addiction will keep someone from being productive is simply buying into the bill of goods you have been sold for so long by the government. Maybe I do not understand addiction. I have never drank and could count on one hand the number of times I've ever used an illegal drug (pot). Still, to say that a person can not function simply because they require high doses of narcotic is silly. If I was to be getting my medications on the street vs from the doctor and the pharmacy I'd be spending over $30,000 per month, so I'm a person who's taking a lot of the stuff and I function just fine...like I said much better with it then I could possibly function with out it.
One of the benefits of a methadone programme is that it saves the government a great deal of money. Not the least, is that many people do work, can look after their kids, etc. And yes, there is a thin line between proper pain management and addiction. Not all people who become "addicted" are looking to do so. Perhaps if more money was spent on addictions there might be less crime, less need for expensive hospitalizations, etc.
If crime by heroin addict is down 60% since the program, that is success. If the heroin addict is using less heroin, clean needles with this program, that is success. Instead of viewing the addict as criminal, they view them as people with disease, and treat them. Very humane. If the addict now have his craving satisfied, but he is not so high he can not function, then he is more productive person than the addict on the street. Very compassionate system. Maybe over time the addict will be weaned from the addiction as he body uses less of the drug over time.
With such proven good results, and lack of negative consequences, I am sure other governments around the world will be jumping to implement similar programs as soon as possible in order to reduce the crime and health consequences of heroin addiction. Right?
What works in a small country won't work here. (US). Switzerland is a more enlightened place. There are fewer thugs and mofos over there.
Prescription heroin is already legal for those with legit aliments.. It's called Oxycontin. Having a bad day ain't a legit aliment. Neither is a stressful job, life style, financial burdens, ungrateful kids, bitch wives, bastard husbands, asshole bosses, traffic jams, the government, etc., etc. Clean up for freedom, otherwise die a slave.