Roughly 70 percent of voters, according to an early vote count of 11 of Switzerland's 26 cantons, voted against a change, Swiss television and radio reported.

Sponsors of the ``Youth Without Drugs'' referendum initiative to change drug policy included the rightist Swiss People's Party, the Liberal Democrats and a number of Swiss athletes and former athletes.

The current programme makes hard drugs, including heroin, available to some addicts to help ease their way back into society. It also offers some addicts methadone or other substances in an effort to keep them from buying illegal drugs.

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THUN, Switzerland Several years ago, Thomas sold himself on Zurich's streets, burgled houses and sold drugs at the city's notorious needle park to finance his heroin habit.

"You are constantly looking for more because there's never enough," said Thomas, 29, a lean man with bleached hair and a welltrimmed goatee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In those earlier days, he racked up a modest criminal record. He tried to quit drugs five or six times but failed. Eventually he lost his job as a counter clerk at the national airline, Swissair.

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The referendum is the work of ``Youth Without Drugs,'' a movement of mainly rightwing groups who collected 100,000 signatures to bring a proposal to a vote by the people.

Condemning Switzerland as the ``drug island of Europe,'' the groups argue that current policy encourages young people to experiment with narcotics and get hooked.

There are an estimated 30,000 drug addicts in Switzerland, one of the highest rates of addiction in Europe. But deaths have dropped from a peak of 399 in 1994 to 312 last year.

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(Harry Smith) When it comes to having a drug problem there is nothing unique about Switzerland. What is unique is what the Swiss are doing about it Switzerland is the first and so far the only country in the world to officially give heroin to addicts. Tom Fenton checked out the results.

(Tom Fenton) Ever since the government started this controversial program, of giving away heroin to hundreds of hard core addicts, the Zurich police have noticed an astonishing drop in drug related crime. Marco who's been on heroin for half his life no longer has to steal and deal. Three times a day he comes to this clinic pays a nominal fee of ten dollars, and gets a fix.

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By: Pamela Fayerman, Sun Health Issues Reporter

Decriminalizing intravenous drugs to stem HIV infection is an absurd idea that could turn Vancouver into one of the world's cocaine and heroin capitals, according to doctors specializing in addiction medicine.

The proposal to allow addicts to possess such drugs without risking criminal arrest was made recently by the National Task Force on HIV, AIDS and Injection Drug Use.

But doctors are outraged by the recommendation, which has now been forwarded to the office of federal Health Minister Allan Rock.

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CLARE NULLIS reports on the success of the Swiss heroin trial.

ZURICH: Marco, a soft spoken 30year old, has been hooked on heroin nearly half his life. Finally, he wants to quit. The courage he needs to start over comes from a familiar source: heroin.

Three times a day, Marco enters a nondescript Zurich office building. He picks up a syringe, needle and swabs and sits in one of five office chairs. He shoots up.

As the drug courses into his bloodstream, a medical doctor stands by. Marco's drug supplier is none other than the Swiss Government.

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ZURICH, Switzerland Marco, a softspoken 30yearold, has been hooked on heroin nearly half his life, but he wants to quit. So three times a day, he enters a Zurich office building to shoot up. Marco's drug supplier is none other than the Swiss government.

Marco is one of about 1,000 junkies in a staterun program that prescribes heroin to hardcore addicts in hopes of guiding them back into mainstream society and encouraging them to kick their deadly habit.

The threeyear experiment, while controversial, has rendered impressive results.

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The program the first in the world has attracted the interest of the World Health Organization, which is evaluating the results, and Dutch officials, who said they were using it as a model for their own effort.

Presenting the findings of the pilot threeyear program involving 1,146 hardened addicts, health and law enforcement experts said it has saved taxpayers money and should be continued. But they also stressed that having doctors inject daily doses of heroin was no substitute for traditional substance abuse therapies.

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The program has attracted the interest of the World Health Organ ization, which is evaluating the results, and Dutch officials, who said they were using it as a model for their own effort.

Presenting the findings of the pilot threeyear program involving 1,146 hardened addicts, health and lawenforcement experts said it has saved taxpayers money and should be continued. But they also stressed that having doctors inject daily doses of herion was no substitute for traditional substance abuse therapies.

[end]

WASHINGTON, April 11 /PRNewswire/ "As our nation flirts with the idea of medical marijuana and toys with failed needle exchange programs, it is clear that the U.S. is following the Swiss example on drug policy," Family Research Council's Senior Policy Analyst Robert Maginnis said Friday. "That's why it's so appropriate that the Second International Symposium Against Drugs takes place in the heart of drug policy 'experimentation' in Switzerland."

On April 1213, Maginnis will discuss the AIDS crisis and the drug legalization movement at an international symposium held in Stadtsaal Zofingen and hosted by AIDS Information Switzerland and Swiss Physicians Against Drugs. Lawmakers and activists will espouse policy solutions and profile the impact of drug addiction and its link with the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

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SWISS prosecutors investigating the frozen funds of Raul Salinas de Gortari, the jailed brother of Mexico's former President, say they have linked him to the smuggling of "40 to 50 tons" of cocaine to the United States.

According to a letter leaked to the Miami Herald , the Swiss believe Salinas, the brother of Carlos Salinas Mexican President from 1988 to 1994 "received enormous amounts of money for his help in connection to drug trafficking". The letter, from Carla del Ponte, the Swiss AttorneyGeneral, to her Mexican counterpart, is the first official indication of a drug connection to Mexico's former first family. If proven, the allegations would be highly embarrassing to Citibank, which handled the Salinas accounts, and would also confirm widespread suspicions of highlevel drug corruption in Mexico.

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