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In Austria, there is a consensus that drug policy should be focused on treatment first, punishment second. While this consensus is highly supported throughout Austria, it did not occur overnight. Long-term political changes gradually forced police and health officials to cooperate on the drug issue and arrive at a consensus that is both effective and supportive of one another’s organizational goals. One of these political changes was in the priorities of political factions.

As mentioned, Austrian parties have become concerned more and more with social pressures to restructure the welfare-state and curtail strong government intervention (Ulram, 1989). Consequently, Austria has been caught in a dilemma of whether to provide society with protection from deviant drug users or provide drug users with services to minimize the harms their behavior causes to the health of themselves and society. So far, Austrian policymakers have managed to strike a cooperative balance between the various approaches to the drug problem.

While one is in the works, Austria currently has no official drug strategy. Essentially there exists a collage of sub-national and local policies that are monitored and often financed by the federal government. As such, while Austria is a unitary country, the autonomy that its provinces enjoy, make it behave like a federalist state (Pelinka, 1998).

This de facto federalism allows for the sub-national and local governments to develop many criminal justice and public health programs that are aimed at dealing with the drug

problem. Seven of the country’s nine provinces have developed their own drug strategies. These strategies share many of the same principles. The first is that there must be a balance between the use of health tools aimed at reducing demand for drugs and law enforcement tools aimed at reducing the supply of drugs. The second is that drug use should not be legalized but

decriminalized13. Third, drug addiction should be acknowledged as a disease not an immoral life choice. Finally, because the aim of a drug-free society is unrealistic, measures should be taken to reduce the social and bodily harm caused by drug use (ÖBIG, 1999).

Despite the autonomy of sub-national governments to develop drug policy, there are two points of control that the national government has over the lower-level governments. The first is that all drug law is federal, and while police officers are managed sub-nationally, their actions are ultimately accountable to the federal ministries of Interior and Justice. The second is that while prevention, treatment, and harm reduction programs fall under the responsibility of sub- national governments, the federal government—via the National Drug Coordinator within the Ministry of Health—sets firm limits on what sorts of programming can be provided to address the drug problem.

In the early 1990s, a federal law was passed that created a formal office of drug policy. Led by an appointee from within the Ministry of Health, the National Drug Coordinator works with respondents from Justice and the Interior to monitor and develop Austrian drug policy. A significant part of this position is to chair the National Drug Forum, which is a body made of drug coordinators from each province, representatives from the four political parties, and bureaucrats from the federal ministries of Health, Justice, Interior, Education Science and Culture, Social Security Generations and Consumer Protection, Defense, Agriculture Forestry Environment and Water Management, Transport Innovation and Technology, Foreign Affairs, and Finance. The purpose of the National Drug Forum is to develop and share different initiatives within the law enforcement, prevention, treatment, and harm reduction framework. While the National Drug Forum serves as the federalist element of Austrian drug policy, the agenda of this group is largely controlled by the national drug coordinator (Haas, et al., 2005).

In administering and shaping the country’s drug policies, the national drug forum is very critical of a law enforcement-only approach. Many of the members feel that the consequences of being arrested cause undesirable effects (job/family problems) that end up causing more harm to the drug user and their environment than just drug use alone. However they, together with the National Drug Coordinator, recognize the utility and importance of police involvement in drug abuse. The result of this is an approach that depends upon a consensus of what is needed to effectively address the drug problem (Haas et al., 2005).

The drug problem in Austria is somewhat smaller than it is in other countries of Western Europe or North America. Of drug use and drug trafficking, Austria tends to be bothered more so by trafficking. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (2002) reports Austria to be a major transit point for drugs coming into Western Europe from the East. While it does have more trafficking problems than user problems, the mere presence of the former has lead to more of the latter. The result has led to the development of four approaches to the drug problem in Austria: law enforcement, prevention, treatment, and harm reduction.

Austrian Law Enforcement Venue

On the criminal justice side of the spectrum, law enforcement agencies tend to focus their efforts more on drug traffickers and producers than on individual users. In fact, legislation passed in October of 2001 permanently lifted restraints on police powers to investigate and punish all drug traffickers—but particularly those involved in organized crime (Eisenbach-Stangl, 2003). Despite efforts to focus on drug traffickers, police officers in Austria do encounter drug users. Different than in other democracies, police officers in Austria are under a principle of legality that requires police officers to report and process all offenses they see or investigate— including the smallest amounts of possession. The lack of discretion that police officers have

however does not represent an end to alternative options for drug users. In place of officer discretion is a process where persons charged with possession or persons charged with other offences related to drug use are sent to the municipal health authority. There they must register themselves with a health officer and develop an action plan that suits their condition and that will take them off of drugs and away from crime. They are not charged with an offense, nor is there any lasting record of their involvement with drugs. If after two years they are not reported by the police to have had any other encounters with drugs, their file is destroyed.

On the other hand, if a drug dependent person is charged and convicted with a crime, they are sent to prison. During that time they undergo withdrawal therapy. After one half to two thirds of the sentence, they can be released from prison if they agree to undergo long-term drug

treatment outside of the prison. In both cases, drug addicts are allowed to pick any treatment facility and type of treatment they prefer. If they do not have the means to pay for this service, the federal government will provide the funding (Haas, et al., 2005).

Austrian Prevention Venue

Unlike many countries that experience contention surrounding the use of law

enforcement, it is in the field of prevention where Austrians actually experience some conflict. Several prevention programs supported by the Ministry of Education were created in the 1980s to teach children about the harms of drug use. These programs were informational and not designed to instill fear of drugs. After considerable pressure from harm reduction and education experts, these programs replaced the fear-driven programs of the 1970s that were designed to scare youth from getting involved with drugs in the first place (Fehervary, 1989). In the past ten years however, some programming designed to scare rather than educate youth about drugs have began to surface. While formal education and unbiased information sharing are still the dominant

forms of prevention in Austria, there is some criticism coming from conservatives who favor the deterrent approach to drug prevention.

Currently, Austria’s prevention venue is fragmented across the different local

governments and Landers. A variety of programs within the education-based prevention model have been designed for Austrians. Many of them are geared towards youth. ‘Becoming

Independent’ is a health promotion and substance abuse prevention program set up in schools across the country. A traveling exhibition known as ‘Have you Got the Hang of Everything?’ tries to sensitize youth on the development of addiction and addiction prevention. A type of selective prevention program offered in the Lander of Graz is ‘Step by Step’. The general aim of this program is to identify and provide support services to school-aged youth who are at-risk developing drug abuse behavior and the possible psychological, physical and social problems which can occur as a result. Finally, an indicted program to be discussed later in this section is a pill-testing service known as ChEckiT! (EMCDDA, 2007).

Austrian Treatment Venue

In the area of treatment, another conflict has seemed to develop within Austria’s drug policy community. In the 1970s substitution treatment became the main method of drug

treatment for some addicts. Inspired by similar programs in Switzerland and Germany, Austria’s addictions experts lobbied to have the government provide morphine and methadone to hard-core opiate addicts. Stepping into a harm-reduction style of treatment, addictions services agencies came under fire for providing prescriptions of morphine and methadone to drug users who in turn sold their dosages on the street to buy heroin. While regulations are currently being developed to minimize the opportunities for patients to take their prescriptions into the general public, there is still considerable conflict over this type of treatment.

Aside from substitution treatment, there are several other forms of treatment provided by local and provincial health authorities. A variety of in-patient and out-patient services are

available, with both short-term and long-term commitments. Within many of the in-patient facilities, detoxification and withdrawal treatment help addicts break away from their addiction. Counseling, follow-up care, and support for both recovering addicts and their families are provided mainly by the out-patient facilities. A number of employment and social reintegration programs help former users create some stability in their lives and help them restore some of what they had lost to their illness. The most important component of the treatment services offered in Austria is flexibility. Since not all programs work for every addict, there is some flexibility, understanding, and patience for clients who relapse (Drugs-Coordination Office of Vienna, 1999).

Austrian Harm Reduction Venue

Turning to harm reduction, this method is the most decentralized of the approaches Austrians use to deal with substance abuse. As explained, the de facto federalism of the country has led to various harm reduction innovations throughout the country. Designed mainly as a tool of public health, harm reduction services are designed to minimize the harms associated with drug use. Such harms are infectious diseases caused by unclean needles, unsafe administration of drugs, stigmatization, criminalization, and victimization.

Some of the harm reduction instruments found throughout Austria are needle-exchange programs, on-site drug safety checks, low threshold treatment and education services, and mobile drug programs; which are teams of social workers and nurses who visit areas of high drug use to provide syringes, condoms, food, and referral to drug treatment and harm reduction agencies (AC Company, 2004). A common harm reduction device placed in many Austrian cities is the

vending machine. At the cost of one Euro, customers can purchase a small box containing two syringes, a condom, an antiseptic wipe, filters, and vitamin C. While many may think the vitamin C is provided to boost the immune system, it is actually included in the packet as an agent to break down the drugs into a liquid so that users do not accidentally inject solid drug particles into their veins.

One harm reduction innovation almost exclusive to Europe is the re-integration programming provided in only a few regions of Austria. Essentially, these programs aim at integrating drug users into the regular labor market by means of low threshold job opportunities. Primarily, clients in Austria are given work in postal services, screen printing, and renovation. Sources independent of Austria’s harm reduction network report that the country’s re-integration programs are quite successful at helping addicts overcome the barriers to the labour market that are caused by the client’s addictions (International Harm Reduction Development Program, 2002).

Perhaps one of the most comprehensive harm reduction associations offering these types of programs is in the capital city of Vienna. Translated as the Vienna Social Project Association,

Verein Wiener Sozialprojekte provides a variety of low-threshold services to the city’s drug user population. Although most of the projects that the Association operates are funded exclusively by the city, some are partially funded by the federal government.

The oldest component of the program is the Ganslwirt drop-in center. Located near a major shopping area of Vienna, Ganslwirt provides needle exchanges, recreational activities, food, refreshments, counseling services, treatment referrals, minor heath services, and acts as a nighttime emergency shelter for the city’s addicts. All year round, Ganslwirt provides these services for free of charge and without the requirement of health insurance.

The second program provided by the Verein Wiener Sozialprojekte is Streetwork. Similar to Ganslwirt, it provides a needle exchange, condom distribution, treatment referrals, and

counseling. The key function of this program is that it provides these services through a van. Being mobile allows certified social workers to visit different parts of the city where drug users either live or congregate. This exposes more addicts to the harm reduction tools that will minimize their risks and eventually introduce them to a healthier life style—namely treatment.

One of the most important programs offered by the association is the Betreutes Wohnen. This program provides supervised accommodations for persons with drug-related problems. The general conditions of the program are that a person be motivated, cooperative, in-need, have no un-served prison sentences, and at least 18 years of age. The clients are provided with apartment flats for an initial period of three months. After this time, a contract is signed and renewed every six months for a total period of 2 years. The purpose of the program is to alleviate the user’s stress of finding housing so that they can focus on the reintegration and treatment services they need to become a functioning drug-free member of society.

The fourth program administered by the Vienna Social Project Association is Fix und Fertig. This socio-economic employment project is aimed at helping former addicts or those recovering addicts enrolled in a substitution program. It is designed to eliminate the handicaps most drug users experience when trying to find employment. By providing various employment experiences in the trades and services industry, recovering or former addicts can slowly learn how to become organized and responsible while also earning some money. Programs such as Fix und Fertig have been very effective in reintegrating drug users and recovering addicts into society.

Perhaps the most well-known, yet controversial program offered in Vienna is the

ChEckiT! program. The main objectives of this program are threefold: the first it to prevent users from ingesting drugs that are more dangerous than the user thought they would be. The second is to demonstrate to drug users that there are many hidden dangers in all forms of drug use. The third objective is to allow health scientists and police professionals to learn and document the types of drugs and their purity levels that are circulating throughout the region. ChEckiT! is aimed at those people who consume party drugs that come in the form of a pill.

On an operational level, a booth or table will be set up near the entrance of a rave or party. Positioned at that booth are medical experts and chemists who perform tests on the substances provided to them by the party-goers. When a drug user approaches the booth he or she swipes their pill on a small piece of sandpaper. The staff test that sample using portable equipment. While the testing is being complete, the outreach workers at the booth talk to the user about different alternatives he or she can consider for help with their substance abuse issues. The outreach worker also asks several informational questions to learn more about the user’s drug history and patterns of behavior. These responses go towards helping health and police professionals better understand the drug situation in the community.

Once the test is complete the client is told whether or not the drug was what he or she thought it was. If a test comes back showing that a drug was not what the buyer said it was, then an announcement is usually made on the venue’s sound system informing other patrons that some baddrugs are circulating throughout the venue. More often than not, the announcements prevent drug users from ingesting pills that turned out to be a substance more dangerous than the actual drug the users were intending to ingest.

The most important role in this process is that of the local police. The only way that drug users will confide in the ChEckiT! staff is if the police promise to refrain from searching or arresting any drug users within a certain radius of the party. The only time drugs are confiscated from the party-goers is if during the testing stage a staff member intentionally or accidentally touches the pill belonging to the user. Not retaining the drug after such an incident would be a violation of Austrian law on controlled substances.

While many police and health professionals support ChEckiT!, there is considerable criticism of the program. Many say it is sending the wrong message to youth who may be

interested in experimenting with party drugs. Currently, the program is subsidized by the City of Vienna. While the ChEckiT! program has been tried in the province of Tirol, it largely maintains its operations in the city of Vienna. So far, the federal government has not taken any position in favor or against the program. This is similar to DanceSafe in the United States—which appears to act beyond the visibility of federal bureaucrats or policymakers (Reed, 2007).