| Not quite - the Swiss system much prefers substitutions than giving out actual heroin. And the police do enforce drug laws, mostly against the dealer networks but also against individuals for possession for other drugs. Also it's not like heroin is legalized. You must have been an addict for at least two years to get it from the health system, and it's a last resort, you must have failed at least two other addiction treatments first. The Swiss approach was also somewhat specific to heroin. If you read about it, it's always heroin that's being discussed. The policy could work because there aren't huge numbers of addicts and the number has been in natural decline for a long time. Addicts are mostly old so the population is shrinking, the cost of giving them free drugs is low. Heroin addiction was a phase, people moved onto different drugs now, but the decline is often attributed entirely to this policy. So what do we see if we look at e.g. crystal meth or cocaine? Not so successful there. Swiss cities dominate cocaine consumption in Europe: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/drug-use_why-swiss-citi... Numbers of addicts are growing and the police do enforce the law, albeit in Neuchâtel for the first meth offense (of possession) you can get out of it if you attend some counselling sessions. After that it's back to prosecution. https://www.thelocal.ch/20161003/neuchtel-dubbed-crystal-met... https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/crystal-meth_power-cut-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/05/swiss-police-s... They aren't handing out crystal meth, suffice it to say. There is also the ethical issues involved with forcing people who stayed clean to pay for other people's addictions, which is what this boils down to. Of course it can still be rational when considering other costs but that doesn't change the underlying ethical issues. |