The Dutch parliament (Tweede Kamer) has voted to expand the country's free heroin program after hearing of the overwhelmingly positive results of a two-year pilot program, the Rotterdam newspaper de Volksrant reported March 5. The pilot program is currently providing free heroin to some 300 users, who must be Dutch nationals and at least 25 years of age. The program, started in March 2002, came about as the Ministries of Public Health, Social Affairs, and Justice recognized that despite their best efforts to stop and reduce heroin use, the county had anywhere from one to two thousand hardcore heroin addicts who could not or would not kick the habit. By this summer, a thousand Dutch users could be in the program, parliament members told the newspaper.
Government officials had supported the original pilot project in part because of anticipated economic and social benefits. And they are seeing them. Public Health Minister Borst told de Volksrant that the free heroin program costs around 15,000 euro per patient annually, a far cry less than the costs of prison and petty crime associated with black market drug use.
"All the statistics point to the fact that free heroin is the best policy," Dr. Wim Van den Brink, director of the Dutch agency to treat heroin addicts (CCBH), told the newspaper. After one year in the program, according to Van den Brink, all participants had better mental and physical health, while the number of days addicts engaged in crime to "score" heroin dropped from 14 to two per month.
