What happened when Switzerland gave prisoners heroin.
America's number 1! (in letting people die painful and gruesome deaths)
An extensive study based on 15 years of data found that providing addicted prisoners with medical-grade heroin did not lead to a deterioration of their health or work performance.
In the 1980s, heroin use surged in Switzerland. According to the paper, published in Harm Reduction Journal, between .5 and .8 percent of the population used street opioids. The country soon had a public health and social crisis on its hands.
“After conditions had deteriorated to the point where open drug scenes existed in several Swiss cities, a national harm-reduction policy was adopted in 1991,” they add.
Authorities instituted Medically Assisted Treatment with methadone and then buprenorphine, needle exchanges, safe consumption sites, and most radically (to us) allowed heavy opioid users over 18 to access heroin-assisted treatment if MAT didn’t work for them.
HAT (heroin assisted treatment) was also introduced in some prisons.
After reviewing 15 years of data, researches found absolutely no downsides to HAT. The men didn’t suffer adverse health outcomes—including overdoses—at any higher rates than the general population.
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