Featured Publications
New Transatlantic Compact for NATO
Forging a Strategic U.S.-EU Partnership
Resetting the Transatlantic Economic Council
Council Highlights
Frederick Kempe at Davos
Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe spoke with the BBC's Nik Gowing about his experience at Davos this year, touching on the future of American power and divergent views of capitalism after the crisis.
Hagel, Scowcroft Appointed to Department of Energy Nuclear Commission
Atlantic Council Chairman Senator Chuck Hagel and International Advisory Board Chairman Brent Scowcroft were appointed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu to a new Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.
The Future of Iran
Jonathan Paris, a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center and adjunct fellow at the London-based Legatum Institute, co-authored an editorial in the Wall Street Journal with Nazenin Ansari entitled "The Future of Iran."
FEATURED ISSUE
NATO Steps up to the Plate
Afghanistan has eroded support for NATO in Washington. An alliance that has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support is now facing bipartisan skepticism.
A Senate hearing this fall made clear that many on Capitol Hill are asking what the value of the alliance is in the future if it cannot succeed in Afghanistan today.
Swiss Approve Free Heroin, Keep Marijuana Illegal
James Joyner | November 30, 2008In separate referenda today, Switzerland approved free heroin for addicts but rejected legalizing marijuana.
Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved Sunday a move to make permanent the country's pioneering program to give addicts government-authorized heroin. At the same time, voters rejected a proposal to decriminalize marijuana.
Sixty-eight percent of the 2,264,968 voters casting ballots approved making the heroin program permanent. It has been credited with reducing crime and improving the health and daily lives of addicts since it began in 1994.
Some 63.2 percent of voters voted against the marijuana initiative.
While the results are seemingly counterintuitive, the heroin program has proven effective and voters rejected a conservative-driven effort to repeal it. Conversely, marijuana was illegal and voters rejected a youth-driven effort to change that.
Comments
The maintenance level heroin program does seem to have been somewhat effective. Would like to see some H v. Methadone comparative data, but the voting results are interesting as all get out.
I just returned from taking a group of 18 Cal Poly Pomona students to Amsterdam to study social service outreach and to volunteer for the Amsterdam Salvation Army during their spring break. The students learned about the progressive Dutch strategies of dealing with social problems.
The use of soft drugs such as marijuana and prostitution are legal in The Netherlands. My students learned that the Municipal Health Bureau has clinics that give longtime heroin users free heroin. This would be blasphemous even to consider in a conversation in the United States. As we listened to the chief psychiatrist at the Municipal Health Bureau explain, there is nothing you can do for a heroin addict until they are ready to do for themselves (get clean) - so instead of evading the problem, the Dutch treat it where it is.
From a public policy perspective, when they give the heroin addict their shot, they stop that person from robbing, stealing and engaging in criminal activity. They also reduce the exacerbation of HIV/AIDS because of the use of clean needles. Their prostitutes operate in a safe zone. They have biweekly health visits. They are unionized.
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