drug users in hopes they would stay out of sight.  For a time, they were given free rein over a riverside park called the Platzspitz, but it was soon overrun with addicts from all over Europe. Eighty percent were from out of town. The scene finally spun out of control and had to be shut down, but in no way was this an experiment in anything other than crowd control.^[20]  Back in the days of alcohol prohibition, an equally disgusting sight could have been created by designating Lafayette Park as a sanctuary for alcoholics.

The first actual large-scale controlled experiment in heroin maintenance—an experiment that had been successfully avoided since the 1920s—got underway in January of 1994 when the Swiss government authorized a three-year research program involving 1000 addicts under the watchful eye of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences and the World Health Organization. Eight hundred volunteers were to be given heroin, 100 would get morphine, and 100 would be put on methadone in 17 different locations throughout the country.^[21]  The volunteers had to be daily users with a long history, and they had to have proof of at least two serious attempts to kick. The study included independent evaluation, double-blind trials, and rigorous controls. 

When the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health issued the final report in July of 1997, the conclusions were exactly as John Marks would have predicted. Crime among the addict population dropped by 60%, half the unemployed found jobs, a third of those on welfare became self-supporting, nobody was homeless, and the general health of the group improved dramatically. By the end of the experiment, 83 patients had decided on their own to give up heroin in favor of abstinence.^[22]

A severely marginalised group of long-standing heroin-dependents was able to be reached through the study, and to a high degree (80 percent) be kept in treatment.

No significant side-effects of heroin prescription were noted.

The controlled prescription of heroin is clinically and practically feasible.^[23]