The Swiss Experience: Lessons from a Drug Policy That Works

The Open Society Foundations and the Swiss Press Club invite you to a discussion on the future of global drug policy with a special focus on the Swiss experience.

Around the world, drug policy is characterized by heavy-handed and punitive law enforcement strategies absent of a public health or human rights framework. These policies have failed to reduce drug use and have exacerbated the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C.

Switzerland took a different approach. By providing drug users with full range of innovative and easy access to services Switzerland is one of the few countries in the world where mortality rate of drug using people is falling.

From the Mountaintops: What the World Can Learn from Drug Policy Change in Switzerland, a new report from the Open Society Foundations, looks at how relying on evidence-based services such as needle exchange programs can lower HIV infection rates, improve health outcomes, and lower crime rates.

This will be the first in a series of reports by the Open Society Foundations that will highlight drug policy reform at the national level; subsequent research will look at Portugal and the Czech Republic.

Speakers

Ruth Dreifuss
Former Head of the Swiss Federal Department of Home Affairs (1993 - 2002) 

Michel Kazatchkine
Executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria 

Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch
Director of Global Drug Policy Program, Open Society Foundations

Ambros Uchtenhagen
Chairman, Research Foundation for Public Health and Addiction at Zurich University

Location

Swiss Press Club
La Pastorale
Route de Ferney
106CH-1202 Genève
T: +41 22 546 14 44
F: +41 22 546 14 45