2019
Ruth Dreifuss
Society’s responses to crime.
Dreifuss was lauded as a highly placed elected leader, for implementing drug policy reforms based on criminological research. She was instrumental in reforming Switzerland’s drug policy by introducing harm reduction initiatives (e.g., controlled access to heroin for addicts). These initiatives reduced both death and crime rates. Her work has influenced global drug policy and demonstrated successful alternatives to repressive measures, policies that are now being adopted in the UK and parts of the US.Ruth Dreifuss
Born 1940 in Switzerland. Ruth Dreifuss was Chair of the Global Commission on Drug Policy at the time of the award and former President of the Swiss Confederation.
Showed that the controlled distribution of legal heroin to addicts can improve their health and reduce crime.Showed that the controlled distribution of legal heroin to addicts can improve their health and reduce crime.
Political courage transformed drug policy
Ruth Dreifuss was awarded the 2019 Stockholm Prize in Criminology for her pioneering work that significantly improved the treatment of drug addiction.
Legally prescribed heroin
As Switzerland’s Minister of Home Affairs (1993–2022) and President of the Swiss Confederation (1999), Dreifuss was the main political advocate of state-assisted drug use. She initiated legislative changes that enabled a unique experiment to test a new treatment for heroin addicts. In these experiments, people who had failed with methadone treatment were offered ‘Heroin-Assisted Therapy’ (HAT). This involved allowing them to inject legally prescribed heroin in medically supervised facilities. The question was whether this method could be made safe, and how it would affect addicts’ behaviour. It turned out that the HAT trials significantly reduced criminality among addicts and improved their health.
As a result of these trials and legislative work inspired by Dreifuss, HAT treatment became routinely available in Switzerland.
Dreifuss’s political courage laid the groundwork for further experiments in Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Canada – all of which produced results similar to those in Switzerland.