... in Switzerland.
The free provision of heroin to addicts won the overwhelming support of Swiss voters yesterday.
Projections based on early results indicated that 69 per cent of voters approved the programme, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, in a poll called under the country's system of direct democracy.
Crime by heroin addicts has fallen 60 per cent since the initiative to allow health clinics to administer controlled doses of the drug began 14 years ago, according to the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health.
The support for the plan came in a referendum called by opponents of a government policy that treats hardened drug users as patients rather than criminals. Critics, including conservatives who called for the referendum, object to the annual cost of 26 million Swiss francs (£14 million), covered by the health insurance that all citizens pay and the Government covers for those who cannot afford it.
Yes, there is a cash cost to such schemes. I personally see no harm making addicts pay a few quid (or indeed Franks) per pop towards it; but even if it were free at point of use, the cost would still only be a fraction of the current cost of heroin related crime, medical treatment and existing 'treatment programmes', that are run by the largely useless quangocracy anyway.
Via Obo, via Rog T.
I Agree With Insp Gadget At Last...
2 hours ago
9 comments:
This makes total sense, on all sorts of levels. So that means it won't even be considered here then!
...and if they die young, so much the better...!!!!
I can't see the bansturbaters in power doing this in the UK. If anything they are likely to try and make Alcohol a class A drug, with predictable consequences.
We could extend the scheme: give people free TVs so they don't have to break into houses to get one. Give people free money so they don't have to rob people on the street. Free mobiles too, why not?
Blue Eyes, we do...it's called the welfare state
BE, that argument doesn't make sense.
If, for some reason, the gummint banned the sale of TVs or of mobile 'phones, then this would lead to a surge in smuggling, black markets, crime etc. Then people really would break into your house to steal these items (rather than stealing them to fund heroin habit).
The gummint stopped the hitherto pragmatic approach of giving addicts heroin on prescription circa 1970-ish, with predictable results. It's not the heroin that makes them steal, it's the high prices caused by the illegality thereof.
NO, because you are suggesting that the STATE hands out free heroin, which isn't the same as it being legal. Why the f*** should I pay for someone's habit under threat of imprisonment from the state?
BE, as I said in the post, I think that addicts should pay for the cost of this, i.e. a few quid a day (same as the extra taxes that smokers or drinkers pay) rather than it being free-at-point-of-use, but that's just details.
Yes - the point that often gets missed in the illegal drugs debate is that in the absence of law enforcement action, they're extremely cheap manufactured products. I worked out on Tim W's site about a year ago that - even based on current prices paid by the NHS for medical heroin, which are an overestimate as at the moment it's rarely used - it'd cost a quid per junkie per day to get them as high as kites.
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