08/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a draft recommendation, the committee on social issues, health and the family of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly congratulates the Swiss government for having managed to first stabilise and then reduce the number of drug-related deaths through prevention and treatment, including the exchange of new for old syringes, providing injection rooms, prescribing heroin for highly dependent drug users and launching employment and housing programmes for drug addicts. The committee calls on other European countries to follow Switzerland's example by adopting policies to reveal the causal link between the destitution and other deleterious effects of drug use and common indicators that can assess and contrast European policies with regard to drug use.