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SPD pushes for synthetic heroin to be rated medicine for addicts

The Social Democrats (SPD) are calling for legislation which would allow for synthetic heroin to be prescribed to the worst addicts before the summer.

Published: 22 February 2009 13:04 CET

SPD pushes for synthetic heroin to be rated medicine for addicts

Photo:DPA

The party’s health expert Carola Reimann has called for a joint effort from the SPD and the Christian Democrats (CDU) to push the required law through parliament.

In an interview with weekly newspaper Das Parlament, Reimann said a number of pilot projects had been successful in supplying heroin addicts with diamorphine – keeping them healthy and away from crime.

The law needed to broaden such work would have to reclassify diamorphine as a medicine which could then be paid for by statutory health insurers.

She said it was not going to be a “heroin on prescription” experience, but was about maintaining the up to 2,500 worst addicts in the country under medical supervision.

The CDU is said to be in favour of further pilot programmes, despite model projects having been conducted since 2002.

Reimann said 13 federal states had spoken in favour of extending the projects to their regions.

“I think it is ridiculous to put those affected on yet another trial,” she said, adding that it had been shown that diamorphine therapy works.

Germany charges sixth suspect in health minister kidnap plot

The 61-year-old man was charged with “the preparation of a treasonous enterprise and membership in a terrorist organisation”, Frankfurt prosecutors said in a statement.

The group intended to strike several parts of the energy grid to provoke a “nationwide power outage lasting several weeks” that would provide cover for a coup attempt, investigators said.

The alleged plotters planned to abduct Health Minister Karl Lauterbach “at gunpoint”, potentially killing his bodyguards in the process.

During the coronavirus pandemic, some of the fiercest opponents of the government’s anti-virus measures were far-right activists who reject Germany’s democratic institutions.

Lauterbach had become a hate figure for the group because of the pandemic restrictions including the requirement to wear facemasks in public places that he had ordered.

“The kidnapping of a high-ranking federal government official was intended to demonstrate the group’s determination and capabilities,” prosecutors said.

The latest suspect was said to have “participated in meetings of the group and worked on the concretisation of the plans”.

The man allegedly declared himself ready to participate in the kidnapping of Lauterbach, prosecutors said.

He also offered his garage in the region south of Frankfurt to a group ringleaders as a weapons store, investigators said.

The senior plotter was arrested in April 2022 and the arms – two AK-47 assault rifles and four Glock pistols – were never deposited.

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The new suspect also offered to “sail” to Russia after the planned coup “as a member of a delegation to negotiate an ‘alliance’ with Russian state authorities and to procure military equipment”, prosecutors said.

Five other members of the group went on trial in Koblenz in May 2023.

The group intended to replace the government with an authoritarian system “modelled on the constitution of the German Empire of 1871”, according to investigators.

The belief that the German government is illegitimate is current among members of the far-right Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich) movement, which has attracted a growing number of followers.

The organisers of another alleged far-right plot to topple the government were arrested in raids at the end of 2022.

The trial of the suspected ringleader, the aristocrat and businessman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss, will open in Frankfurt in May.

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