Fewer new Swiss heroin users after treatment policy

LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) The number of new heroin addicts in the Swiss canton of Zurich dropped by more than 80 per cent after Switzerland introduced treatment programmes for addicts, research published has showed.

The scientists who conducted research yesterday said they uspected needle exchanges and substitute drug replacement treatment which treated heroin use as a medical condition had turned potential new users off the drug.

''Heroin seems to have become a 'loser drug', with its attractiveness fading for young people,'' said Carlos Nordt, one of two scientists whose research was published in The Lancet medical journal.

The study by Nordt and fellow scientist Rudolph Stohler showed that the number of new heroin users dropped to 150 people in 2002 from 850 in 1990 after the introduction of programmes which critics had said would encourage more heroin use.

Nordt -- who is a doctor at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich -- said the declining figures reflected similar trends throughout Switzerland.

Nordt said he found no evidence to support critics who had argued that the needle exchanges and programmes to help users get off heroin with replacement drugs such as methadone or buprenorphine would increase the number of new addicts.

Nordt and Stohler analysed information on more than 7,000 patients in Zurich who had substitution treatment. The research covers a 13-year period.

Fewer people are trying heroin, but the overall number of existing addicts has only declined by four per cent, the scientists said.

''This is a long-long condition for some,'' Nordt said.

REUTERS SI BST1026