8. Europe: Not "Hard on Drugs" or "Soft on Drugs"...but Smart on Drugs—The Swiss Approach to Hard Drugs

Even as some European countries are liberalizing their approach to marijuana, they draw a clear distinction between "soft" and "hard" drugs. Hard drug abuse—with an estimated two million problem users—is a concern in Europe, just as it is in the US. There is no easy solution. But the pragmatic European approach—based on harm reduction rather than punishment for an immoral act—appears to have had some success. Switzerland has been at the forefront of these efforts.

The last time I was in Switzerland, I dropped into a Starbucks in downtown Zürich, went downstairs into the bathroom...and it was all blue. I had stumbled into another example of a creative European drug policy. The Swiss, who don't want their junkies shooting up in public bathrooms, install blue lights. I couldn't see my veins...you couldn't shoot up if you wanted to.

If you don’t want junkies shooting up in your toilet, just put in blue lights.

Of course, this minor frustration wouldn't stop junkies from finding a fix. Across the street is a machine that once sold cigarettes. Now it sells hygienic, government-subsidized syringes—three for two francs, about a buck apiece. The Swiss recognize that heroin doesn't spread HIV/AIDS or other deadly diseases. Dirty needles do.

If addicts need more than just sterile needles, they know they can go down the street to a heroin-maintenance clinic for their fix. Rather than steal (or worse) to finance their addiction, they get the services of a nurse and a counselor. Swiss society is working to help addicts stay alive, get off of welfare, and rejoin the workforce. Clinic workers told me that in Switzerland, crime and AIDS cases related to heroin use have decreased, while recovery and employment rates among their clients have increased.

When addicts aren’t nervous about where they’ll get their next fix, consumption goes down (as do overdoses). When demand on the streets goes down, so does the price. This brings down street violence...and is bad news for a pusher's bottom line. With clean needles and a source providing reliable purity, potency, and quantity, maintaining the addiction becomes less dangerous. With these provisions, you still have an addict—but you remove crime, violence, money, and disease from the equation, so you can treat it as what it is: a health problem for mixed-up people who are screwing up their lives and need help. As Swiss addicts are safely dosed to maintenance levels, they begin to reclaim their lives, get jobs, pay taxes, and—in many cases—kick their habit altogether.

Switzerland’s heroin maintenance centers (now also in Germany and the Netherlands) succeed in reducing the harm caused by drug abuse.

While heroin-maintenance programs seem to be relatively successful, Europeans have tried and failed with other programs. For instance, experimental “needle parks” (places where the hard drug-taking community could gather), which ended up attracting junkies and creating a public nuisance, were abandoned for the more low-key maintenance centers. But at least Europeans are dealing with the challenge openly, creatively, and compassionately. 

In contrast, some observers suggest that the US's more punitive policies towards addicts cause "junkification": they marginalize the addict and drive them to dangerous, predatory behaviors—from simple stealing, to mugging, to prostitution, to selling drugs to others. In other words, if you treat heroin addicts like they're dangerous junkies...that's exactly what they'll become.

The casual American observer who sees more junkies on the streets of Europe than in the USA may conclude they have a bigger drug problem because of their more lenient drug policies. In fact, according to the 2007 UN World Drug Report, the percentage of Europeans who use illicit drugs is about half that of Americans. The difference is that theirs are out and about while working with these centers and trying to get their lives back on track. Ours are more often either dead or in jail. Through its busy maintenance centers, Switzerland has provided literally millions of heroin fixes, and they’ve not had a single overdose death. Overall the USA loses roughly 18,000 people a year to hard drug overdoses, and Europe (with a much larger population) loses about 8,000.

Like my European friends, I believe we can adopt a pragmatic policy toward both marijuana and hard drugs, with a focus on harm reduction and public health, rather than tough-talking but counterproductive criminalization. The time has come to have an honest discussion about our drug laws and their effectiveness. When it comes to drug policy, you can be soft, hard...or smart.

About Rick's drug policy views.