Heroin addiction: How to smack it down
To beat the scourge of heroin, governments should deal the drug themselves
The Economist (UK)
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Ireland would establish "medically supervised injecting facilities" where heroin addicts can take their drugs, using clean equipment, under doctors’ supervision. This will reduce the dreadful harm done by heroin to its users and to society, which suffers from the crime that always goes hand in hand with such an addictive and expensive drug. But regulating how heroin is consumed ought to be just the first step. The state should snatch this market back. A handful of European countries have experimented with providing not just safe facilities in which to take drugs, but also prescribing unadulterated, free heroin itself. (See also: How did Ireland's drug policy suddenly get so progressive?)
