The needle park in Zürich.

The article discusses the valuable lessons learned from the end of the needle park in Zürich, Switzerland, which was a public recreational park where illegal drug users assembled in the late 1970s. It says that the needle park was a symbol of the society's failure to prevent youngsters from retreating to drugs and the failure to give them humane services through families, the community and the schools. According to the author, one of the positive things that came out of the needle park story was the public awareness of the magnitude of the drug problem. The police attempts to disperse the concentrations of drug users in the streets between 1982 and 1987 and the drug policy of the Zürich government are also discussed.