Habili-blog 11/23/18
“Treatment or enabling?”
by Jared Mayes
Free drugs! Get your free drugs!
What if I was to yell that downtown in that park you only go to for one reason. The park that most avoid but some call home. Well wipe the slobber off your chin because I doubt you will ever hear those words uttered here in America. You can, however, quite possibly hear something similar if you were to move to Switzerland. Following an uncontrollable rise of heroin use in 1995 the small and unprepared country was called to action. Let me preface this as just a general “now you know” story and not a personal stance; I’ll let you be the judge, but as the saying goes if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Switzerland soon realized that they had to equip themselves with something more powerful than the serpent of darkness that slithered it’s way into their backyards and communities.
The answer was surprisingly medical grade heroin.
I guess sometimes the best way to fight fire is with a stronger and hotter fire. Eventually Switzerland found themselves with 1,500 patients at there 22 locations where an addict could come daily to receive their daily dose of concentrated and pure medical grade heroin. They soon discovered that the HIV rates that peaked at a scary 50% in the 90s fell to just 10% in 2015. Within the 20 year heroin crisis, the amount of overdoses were not only reduced by the trained medical professionals administering the drug but were followed by the reduction of crime produced by the heroin boom.
Harm reduction is accepted by few and shunned by most.
It’s the theory that if someone is going to make a poor choice, it is only humane that we equip them with the tools to do it safely. With this theory has come a worldwide trend of Nalaxone trainings, needle exchange programs, and most recently safe injection sites. Switzerland has paired these injection sites with addiction treatment. In some cases has reportedly dropped certain users drug use by up to 80%. The slow weening process has allowed individuals to obtain jobs, housing and learn to live life “as normally as possible.” Now I must admit as great as free heroin with my morning bagel and coffee sounds, I don’t associate a doctor dosing me before work as being “normal.”
I do see the need for outside the box and nontraditional options for fighting the War on Drugs which doesn’t include piling billions of dollars into band aid treatment programs and prisons.
Is this the answer to the question we’ve been asking since Nixon declared his unwinnable war in 1971? Politics and financial greed aside, we live in a time where families are tired of watching their loved ones kill themselves. Nothing makes me more grateful then knowing that I never have to end up back on the streets if I choose not to. Unfortunately, there are many who will never stumble upon the opportunity I was afforded. Others will never see themselves worthy of anything greater than their drug fueled path to destruction. Most will remain unwilling until eventually coming to the fork in the road between the inevitable jails, institutions or death.
Is Switzerland Treating their “patients” or enabling them. I guess that’s for them to decide. I must admit, with this alternative experiment it seems less and less addicts are going down any of those three roads.
https://www.thefix.com/inside-switzerlands-addiction-treatment-experiment
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