Psychology and Policy

[jducoeur]

Heard a very interesting article on BBC World Service this morning, talking about the Swiss experiment with drug regulation. They've apparently taken a super-pragmatic approach to heroin addiction, focusing on crime reduction and harm mitigation, and it's reportedly working quite well.

Basically, they provide free heroin/methadone treatment and free needles to addicts, but manage it stringently. Addicts have to queue up at the pharmacy each morning to receive their fix, and they are closely monitored. The attitude is very professional, treating it as a health problem.

Results: new cases of heroin addiction have plummeted -- I believe they said that it's fallen five-fold since they started. The reason seems to be simple psychology: the sight of the addicts lining up to get their daily fix has made heroin totally uncool, with the result that the younger set are avoiding it like the plague. Early criticisms that a legalized approach would lead to more addiction have been pretty effectively refuted. And heroin-related crime has mostly gone away, since it's easier (if more humiliating) to get the legal fix.

Very nicely done, and instructive to the overall drug argument. It's a good illustration that legalization can work well, if you think the problem through carefully. Now if only the US could apply a similar degree of sense to its drug policies...

Comments

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

::plops into memories:: My non-thesis class this fall will be Substance Abuse- not because I have a real deep interest in it, but because this is one of the Big Things in policy-making, and I should be at least somewhat informed. "I make the law! I am the law!"

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

And I could give a thousand reasons why de-criminalizing marijuana actually helps the economy. The real problem is, politicians work hardest on getting re-elected. Legalizing drugs is like handing your opponent a weapon, "My opponent is soft on hardened criminals! I am not!"
-- Dagonell

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Now if only the US could apply a similar degree of sense to its drug policies...

It could, if the voting populace didn't have its collective head shoved in an anatomically inappropriate place on the subject. We generally cannot separate our personal moral judgements from the overall practical solution.

The number of problems that could be solved if we could recognize that "punishment" is not always a useful solution is staggering.

So what takes its place?

[metageek.livejournal.com]

OK, so heroin addiction rates have gone down. Has some other drug taken its place? (Granted, moving people from heroin to, say, marijuana is a big improvement...)

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't implementing it here require a coordinated national health system? I'd be happy to have one of those, too.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

We...um...we have methodone clinics. I'm unclear on what the difference about their approach is. New funding? Cleaner uniforms? They give it out at the front door, not the back?