What would happen if the U.S. government announced a new obesity-fighting initiative whereby every chronically obese person in the country was given up to two federally-funded Big Macs a day? That’s basically the plan of attack Switzerland is taking with its heroin addicts. The BBC reports that the Swiss have passed a “radical” health policy that allows long-term addicts to receive the drug at government clinics, free of charge.
A whopping sixty-eight percent of voters supported the policy, which would allow addicts to inject the drug up to twice a day under medical supervision. Granted, the scheme has some benefits: it increases control of needle use and disposal, provides incentives for addicts to come into clinics regularly and be treated for other medical or psychological problems, and removes the need for them to resort to crime to pay for their habit. Part of the bill’s popularity also comes from the fact that the scheme has already been underway in Zurich for 14 years, and many consider it successful.
Still, at the end of the day, the bill is exactly what it sounds like: a plan to have the government pay to shoot its citizens up with expensive and extremely dangerous drugs.
