Swiss Referendum Results
The results are in for the Swiss referenda discussed in the post below (Needle Park, Switzerland). The heroin maintenance program was voted to become a permanent program by a 2/3 majority.
The marijuana legalization law was defeated apparently based mostly on fears of marijuana tourism and the problems it causes. As happens on the Dutch border thousands of people from neighboring France and Germany cross the border to smoke, buy, and bring marijuana back home where it is still illegal. This causes strong objections to be raised from Holland’s neighbors and hordes of youths crowding into village coffee shops in small border towns to buy their drug. With memories of ‘Needle Park” still quite fresh the Swiss have no desire to turn their little country into a “Pipe Park” for French, German, and Italian cannabis tourists.
Needle Park, Switzerland
Often when talking about drug legalization I hear about how the Swiss tried it and in what was nicknamed “needle park” and what a mess it was. Junkies shooting up in public… fighting, throwing up… even dying in the park. They cite it as evidence that we need to continue our policy of prohibition.
What the pragmatic Swiss did was this: They realized that heroin addicts were a problem in Zurich and other Swiss cities. The Swiss like order and cleanliness and junkies nodding off in shop doorways and urinating on the steps of Swiss banks was a problem. They designated a park near the railroad station as a place where these IV drug users could go and do what they did unmolested by police.
Well it got them away from the downtown shops and banks but every IV drug user in Switzerland went there to score their drugs. Then it attracted junkies from other European countries as well. It became an uncontrollable mess in short order. Imagine if we had alcohol prohibition again and there was one park in your city designated as the only place where you could legally drink alcohol. How long would it take for every alcoholic in town to go there? Can you imagine what that park would be like in a month?
So realizing that the needle park idea was a dumb one but still understanding that arresting drug users hasn’t worked elsewhere in the world the Swiss tried another plan…heroin maintenance. They took the most addicted drug users they could find, people that had repeatedly failed treatment programs, and brought them to a clinic where they met with a doctor who examined them and gave them their dose of heroin. Soon a dose was found that satisfied their cravings but allowed them to function. They came to the clinic once or twice a day and shot up. After a year they evaluated the program. The results, according to World Health Organization* concluded:
(a) The health of participants improved.
(b) Illicit cocaine and heroin use declined greatly.
(c) Housing situation improved and stabilized- most importantly there were no longer any more homeless participants.
(d) Fitness for work improved considerably, those with permanent employment more than doubled from 14% to 32%.
(e) The number of unemployed fell by half (from 44% to 20%)
(f) A third of the patients that were on welfare, left the welfare rolls. But, others went on to welfare to compensate for their lost income from sales of drugs.
(g) Income from illegal and semi-legal activities decreased significantly, from 69% of participants to 10%.
(h) The number of offenders and offenses decreased by about 60% during the first 6 months of treatment.
(i) The retention rate was average for treatment programs. 89% over 6 months, and 69% over 18 months.
(j) More than half of the dropouts did so to switch to another form of treatment. 83 of the participants did so to switch to an abstinence-based treatment, and it is expected that this number will grow as the duration of individual treatment increases.
(k) There were no overdoses from drugs prescribed by the program.
There are currently some 1300 addicts in these programs around the country and, in addition to pharmaceutical heroin or cocaine they get therapy with a psychiatrist and counseling by social workers.
The aim is that the patients learn how to function in society. After two to three years in the program, one-third of the patients start abstinence-programs and one-third change to methadone treatment.
I remember talking to the chief of police for Zurich at that time and he told me that he spoke around the country against this program until he saw it in action. Now he speaks in favor of it and why not? Crimes committed by heroin addicts have dropped 60 percent since the program began in 1994.
Next Sunday the Swiss will have a referendum on whether or not to make the program permanent. Polling shows a 3 to 1 majority in favor.
Also on the ballot will be a law to make it legal to own and cultivate cannabis. According to official surveys, 28% of the Swiss aged between 15 and 39 have smoked cannabis.
“Out of a population of 7 million we have 600,000 users. The level of social acceptance is very high” said Sergio Savoia, president of the ‘Verdi Ticinesi’ and one of the political parties in favor of the new law.
The big Swiss cities and the German part of Switzerland are in favor while more rural and traditional areas are less enthusiastic. The majority of political parties are in favor of this law and it too is expected to pass.
Check back here after the voting and I’ll tell you the results.
* Source: Robert Ali, et al, (April 1999), Report of the External Panel on the Evaluation of the Swiss Scientific Studies of Medically Prescribed Narcotics to Drug Addicts, The World Health Organization.
NY’s Budget woes… A modest proposal.
With Wall Street no longer able to contribute one fifth of our state’s budget as it has in the past and with a possible $12 billion deficit facing the state next year how can New York continue to exist in the manner to which it has grown accustomed? New York is already heavily taxed and those high taxes are a reason many businesses have left the state and others refuse to move here. It’s a beautiful state with much to offer but frankly, the future does not look good. So what can we do?
Obviously things New Yorkers have grown used to will need to be cut. We can’t absorb a multi-billion dollar hit to our income and go on as before. But what can we cut without making life unbearable? There is one policy that costs the state billions each year and would hurt almost nobody, in fact, public safety would be increased and the future of many of our children would be protected. It’s the one policy that is obviously not working and therefore the logical one to cut.
New York State made over one and a quarter million marijuana arrests last year. Even though the majority of those arrested for marijuana do not end up doing prison time they often spend a night in jail, get arraigned and otherwise cost the state money it doesn’t have. This policy cost over half a billion dollars for police, judicial, and corrections budgets.
While the immediate penalties may not be terribly harsh in New York the long term effects of a drug arrest are. That arrest record follows you for the rest of your life. That’s an additional quarter of a million people each year who must answer “Yes” to the question “Have you ever been arrested” on a job application. It can make them ineligible for federal aid to go to college. It can get them evicted from public housing. It can make it hard to get credit or take out a loan. Not only are these long-term consequences bad for the arrestee but they’re terrible for the state’s economy as well. Those denied loan applications, for example, translate into fewer car sales, fewer clothing purchases, and fewer mortgages approved
The Netherlands has 16.5 million inhabitants, just about 12% fewer people than New York State. The Netherlands has allowed hundreds of coffee shops to purchase and sell marijuana and hashish openly now for many years.
According to a Dutch newspaper the Netherlands nets $2.7 billion yearly from taxing cannabis production and the prices for marijuana there are about half of what they are here
Simply by legalizing and taxing marijuana New York State could raise four or five billion dollars each year. Of course there are those who would tell us the sky would fall were we to do such a thing. They would tell us that marijuana use would increase although there is absolutely no evidence anywhere to support this and teenage marijuana use in the Netherlands is about half what is here. They’ll tell us that today’s marijuana is more dangerous than it used to be but there’s no evidence to support that either. They’d tell us that legalization would make marijuana more available than it is now. I find it hard to believe that it could be more available than it already is. Schoolchildren can buy it more easily than they can alcohol. Businessmen buy it. Our politicians buy it. Why not end this farce and start to make money from it instead of flushing desperately needed billions down the drain while our economy collapses? It seems insane to waste those desperately-needed billions chasing pot smokers while cutting funding for schools and hospitals.
2008 Election Results… Was there much progress toward a rational drug policy?
How did the election turn out vis-à-vis our drug laws, in particular our marijuana laws? Let’s take a look at the most significant changes as of this election day.
In MICHIGAN the Marijuana Policy Project’s medical marijuana initiative passed by 63% to 37% in Michigan, making it the 13th state to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest and jail. While any new medical marijuana law is a great victory, this one is especially notable, since Michigan is now the first medical marijuana state in the Midwest, and the second largest medical marijuana state in the country (with California being the largest).
The battle is far from over however. The effort to get this legislation passed resulted in language in the bill designed to make it acceptable to the public who is assumed to be anti-marijuana and susceptible to campaign claims by prohibitionists that this bill would allow more access to kids and somehow help drug dealers. Now the concessions come to light. It’s not effective until December 4, and after that the state has 120 days to implement various restrictions and regulations. What “restrictions and regulations”? I understand they do not have the authority to seriously gut the law and that’s good but The Michigan Department of Community Health is in charge of administering the process… why not simply put the decision-making where it belongs — with the doctor? What other medications require a state permit and a special state agency to govern them? This is condoning the currently accepted idea that cops need to tell docs how to practice medicine. The hope is that because of the clear 2 to 1 vote the bureaucrats may be hesitant to gut the resolution with too many restrictions. Let’s hope.
And here’s the big problem. The law only covers the possession of marijuana, but purchasing it is a different story. The card patients will be issued will protect them if found possessing marijuana but under state law purchasing it is illegal. So under the law if you grow it or it appears magically in your house you’re OK… go buy it and the dealer who sells it to you could soon be doing prison time. So sick people can, should they choose for whatever reasons not to get their medicine through a licensed “caregiver”, buy it on the street. Not the most logical system.
In MASSACHUSETTS the Marijuana Policy Project’s landmark initiative to decriminalize marijuana in Massachusetts passed by 65% to 35%. The measure removes the threat of arrest and jail for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, replacing it with a $100 fine, which can be paid through the mail without lawyers or court appearances, just like a speeding ticket and there would be no criminal record involved to haunt you for the rest of your life. This is the first time in history that voters have passed a statewide initiative to decriminalize marijuana! (New York lawmakers decriminalized personal possession of up to 1 oz. of marijuana back in the 1970’s as long as it was not in public view but that was a decision by the legislators after passage of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. It seems there were far too many white kids facing decades of imprisonment for pot offenses so they struck marijuana from the RDL’s and decriminalized it.) Still a far cry from legalization - sale is still a crime, as is growing, but it’s a good step for MPP and Massachusetts.
FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS and HAWAII COUNTY, HAWAII both passed measures making adult marijuana offenses the lowest priority for local law enforcement passed by 66% to 34% and 53% to 39% respectively. These “lowest possible priority” policies are a compromise between actual legalization and the status-quo. They are intended to order police to take care of all other business first and only then go after marijuana offenders. This cuts way down on “buy and bust” operations, long expensive stakeouts, and destructive searches of homes and vehicles for suspicion of marijuana. Unfortunately, with so many law enforcement outfits operating in the same areas these days (county sheriffs, local police, state police, DEA, FBI, etc.) it’s hardly a guarantee of anything but it’s better than nothing. It also shows the pot-fearing public that the sky won’t fall if someone smokes pot.
In NEW YORK control of the State Senate passed to the Democrats after decades of Republican control. This bodes well for future medical marijuana legislation which has previously passed in the Assembly but was stalled in the Senate. Governor Patterson is in favor of drug policy reform so now, with a supportive state legislature perhaps New York will be able to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws and at least pass a medical marijuana law. Without being able to use the Republicans as an excuse perhaps something more dramatic may even pass!
So all in all, a pretty good result for those who favor a more sensible policy toward that most common and relatively harmless of illegal drugs, marijuana. Unfortunately the bulk of the harm to our society comes, not only from marijuana laws but from the laws prohibiting the other illegal drugs. Until we examine those we won’t see significant drops in crime and violence on our streets, reductions in our prison population, and a significant boost to the nation’s economy… but, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
