Initiatives to wean people off illegal drugs have long been tried and tested – from rehabilitation centres to alternative therapies. The Swiss have now taken combatting drug addiction one step further.
* 69% of Swiss voters have turned out in favour of health clinics providing free heroin to addicts. The government policy has resulted in a 60% decrease in crime by heroin addicts.
* In the UK, drug related crimes cost the government more than £13 billion pounds. Latest figures also show that more than 50,000 UK addicts are on state handouts because their addiction makes it impossible for them to work.
*Last week in Oregon USA, drug addict Amatha Mendive was found dead behind a rubbish site. Would controlled heroin provision have helped this young mother?
Have you kicked an addicition? Is there any sense in giving drugs to drug addicts? Should we be giving more alcohol to alcoholics? Do you approve of governments using tax payers’ money to pay for addictions? Or is this is the only solution to weaning people off dangerous substances and de-glamourising drugs?
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BBC World Have Your Say 
This would also be called “enabling” an addiction. This is like going to AA meetings and handing out little bottles of alcohol for them to drink.
It is a sad fact that there is no treatment or help that will save addicts from themselves until they want to be saved. Treatment centres are revolving doors and swallow resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
People who sincerely believe that they need brain candy to survive will find that candy one way or another. If nothing else is available they will inhale solvents and drink anything with an alcohol base.
But it also a fact that when addicts decide to save themselves, they need very little help.
The drug problem (like the terrorism problem) is more complex than we care to admit. Prescription drugs and alcohol are rampant and hold up the respectable middle class. Yet, we don’t hear anyone complain about that.
The question that is sorely in need of addressing is why any drug is illegal, in the first place? In other words, if some drugs must be illegal, why not all drugs?
Addictive / compulsive behaviors, and the anxieties at their root, are fairly common. Whether lives proceed productively depends upon the nature of the addicting behavior. Sweets addiction makes folks rounder than they’d prefer; but occasional abstinence does reduce the waistline. Hard drugs, on the other hand, turn “I don’t want to stop.” into “I am unable to stop.” No matter. Free will is a birthright. Everyone is issued a ticket; some choose a destination from which return is difficult. Society’s role should be to reduce as much as possible, and for the greatest number of people as is possible, those causes for anxiety that tip people down addictive, non-productive paths. For the rest it must, while maintaining compassion, recognize that enabling a dysfunction is also an addictive behavior.
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Some years back I worked on an educational film about alcoholism. The academic consultant on the production stated one night (over a few end-of-day beers ironically) that a heroine addict with a maintenance dose of his drug would be able to function far better in society than an alcoholic.
@ Selena
Why not make all drugs illegal? Because never in the history of mankind has prohibition of anything succeed. All it does is create the “forbidden fruit” syndrome.
I don’t think the Swiss have thought through their ban on marijuana. There they are, the mother lode of the best chocolate in the world, and they DON’T want people coming there to get high?
Re: Should you feed an addiction?
No.
Re: Amatha Mendive
I think it is very sad that this woman lost her life to drugs. However, what about her 3 kids and family; where do they fit in when people consider the effects of drug use? Where does the correlation between IV drug use and the transmission of AIDS and other diseases, crime, unemployment, and etc fit in?
No person addicted to drugs will be successful in treatment unless they make the effort to get sober and stay that way. While it is hard for some to get to the point where they will admit to having an addiction, staying sober is the hard part.
I think the reason it is so difficult for some to stay sober is because drug use is glamorized. There needs to be focus on curbing gateway drug use especially in young people. I think that doctors should not be rolling out prescriptions for pain management so quickly and should monitor patients with the goal of the weaning the patient off of pain management. Alcohol should not be so easily available; especially at restaurants. We have laws against drunk driving and having alcohol at them almost certainly means that you were going to break the law and drive home.
A lot of the taxpayer’s money is actually saved by this measure. There is far less crime committed by the addicts. Many of the addicts have jobs and pay taxes. Their adiction has become just an ordinary medical condition, not that different from someone who has diabetes and who has to inject him/herself with insuline.
Tax those who are addicted to alcohol, cigarettes and drugs very heavily to the extent where they will amend their ways…
@ Count Iblis
“Their adiction has become just an ordinary medical condition, not that different from someone who has diabetes and who has to inject him/herself with insuline.”
Interesting point. I think this is the problem — that much of society does not accept addiction as a disease, but rather as a moral, personal failing. If there was more acceptance of the disease theory, i think more creative measures for treating addiction would emerge; and maybe help many addicts and their families who are struggling.
I have to say, it is never a good idea to feed an addiction….
People who are problems with addictions,
should be offered treatment….
We have debated Nature v Nurture to avoid paying the buck for years. Guess what? it turns out everything for each person is genetic. DNA is the map of the life our parents led and we lead, it records everything we do, think, and feel and we pass it on when we modify the proteins and nutrients we daily coat sperm and ovaries that combine to make the genes of our offspring.
When time finishes shaping your face and body will it be a worthy one? Only if the system put worthy things before our eyes and in our minds. Who is responsible for commercialism assuming that developing minds can discern reality from fantasy? who is responsible for the extent media glamourises people with addictions? This is where we need to concentrate our efforts in the corruption that benefits from addictions.
should we still get free air to breath now that we have been addicted to it?is it necessary for GOD to let us have air.addiction is like a disease but not worst than hunger or empty stomachs.addicts should infact eat well,but must work hard inorder to put their own food on the table if they need to still know themselves.
tambua,hamisi,kenya.
Adiction of any thing is an unbalanced personality trait,One should not be adict even to the fragrance of flowers what to say others……
Free drugs means that you are helping somebody to commit suicide. Drugs are only 20% of a drug problem, the underlying causes are what need to be treated.