ANNE COPPEL – Association Française de Réduction des Risques, France

Has France seen an evolution of its drug policy? If change has occurred, neither the political establishment nor public opinion have been made aware of it. Officially, the drug war continues. Prosecution of drug related offences continues to increase, (arrests have increased 10% per year, and probably convictions as well, although statistics are less available). Since 1999, MILDT has aligned itself with a public health oriented drug policy that includes treatment and prevention, but only experts can distinguish any change since public health has always been used as the reference. Yet change has in fact occurred. The AIDS/HIV threat has forced France to accept the reality of drug use and confront drug-related harm. Additionally, alcohol and tobacco use has also been included in efforts to combat drug dependency. This more pragmatic approach was mandated by its results (a decrease of 80% in fatal overdoses from 1994-99), but as it has been limited to issues of health it therefore hasn't changed official institutional objectives. Thus contradictions have been evident, in particular due to the nature of centralised political power in France, but the situation is shared with most other European countries as well.
The pragmatic approach is the basis for experimental programmes with concrete goals: decrease of fatalities and adverse consequences for health, and also (but not yet in France) a reduction of drug related delinquency and public nuisance. With its own methods, culture and professional institutions, Europe is seeking a way to improve the situation, a way with less violence, less death and less criminality. In the opinion of many including the consumers of drugs, this reformist path needs the benefit of wide trust and confidence, implementing new professional approaches to control, health care and prevention. This is the path leading to a realistic policy, more effective and more human. The experimental approaches must be supported; they must be justified by their intended goals and become the preferred institutional and legal strategies as a function of their proven merit.

ANDRIA EFTHIMIOU-MORDAUNT – John Mordaunt Trust, London, United Kingdom

Global Drug Prohibition is a war on communities, from the child whose responsible drug using parent is imprisoned, to the injector who is deprived of sterile needles by restrictive social policies therefore contracting life-threatening illnesses, to the victims of drug-related crime not to mention peasant coca and opium growers, who have their livelihoods destroyed by militaries funded by fanatically-prohibitionist governments.
Even ex-injectors/drug-dependents have the scars of this system written indelibly on their souls forever: rape and abuse (which happens to drug users who sell sex for drugs), violence over the very high pricing of illicit drugs and the years of imprisonment that makes human trust and social reintegration almost impossible. Whatever way we look at it, the illicit market controlled by organised gangsters is deeply enmeshed in all of these horrors and more.
Widowed by AIDS, and left for dead many times, I found that addiction may not be the best way to approach life, but I also know that most of this suffering could have been avoided if I'd been able to obtain my medicine in the usual legal fashion.
Therefore, I believe it is my civic duty to spread a message of non-criminalising drug policies for ALL users, and to encourage governments to do everything they can to prevent this continued mayhem within our communities.

CHRIS DAVIES, Member of European Parliament - Liberal Democrat, North West of England, United Kingdom

It is time that the "war" on drugs came to an end. The policies of prohibition have failed. Indeed, they are directly responsible for most drug-related deaths and for the misery of organised crime. How the dealers must laugh at those who call for ever tougher measures. Police efforts in seizing shipments of drugs simply drive up their price, increase the profit margin, and encourage more criminals into the business. A handful get arrested but the fittest survive and get very, very rich.

Meanwhile the poor fools tempted to try their addictive wares are willing to prostitute themselves or steal to feed their habit. They die because they don’t know what they are putting into their bodies. Prohibition denies them the basic information available to every alcohol user.

Reform is hindered by the UN Conventions, but it is happening. Criminal sanctions get no mention in the European Commission’s latest recommendation on reducing drugs dependence; the arguments in favour of harm reduction policies have won the day.

Prohibition must be replaced by government regulation. Deal with the criminality and get rid of the profit-motive and you have a chance of getting the health messages across. After all, no-one ever intends to become a junkie or crackhead.

The pragmatic first step for politicians should be to break the link between soft and hard drugs. The low rate of heroin addiction in Holland speaks for itself.

DAVID BEWLEY TAYLOR - University of Wales Swansea, United Kingdom

This presentation aims to explore the history of the international drug control regime and US inspired efforts to develop a global blueprint based on prohibition. It will examine the fluctuating relationship between European nations and the US and show that, while keen to protect their own national interests, many European states have long been reluctant to embrace US style prohibition. By placing current events within a broader historical context the presentation will argue that it may now be possible to identify the beginnings of a new third chapter in the life of the international regime. Emblematic of this trend is the fact that it is the US rather than the Netherlands that is increasingly marginalized among Western states within the UN drug control framework. No longer able to effectively and humanely address the needs of their own countries within the confines of the present regime, like-minded thinking among many states could make Europe the epicentre for an ongoing quest for drug policy repatriation.

FRANCO CORLEONE, former vice-minister of Justice, president of Forum Droghe, Italy.

In Vienna, at the CND summit, it will fall upon "old Europe" to advocate different approaches in drug policies and alternatives to prohibition. If the European countries aim at changing the International Conventions, they have to raise a political and cultural debate on this issue openly. But this hasn't happened so far, as they have had a defensive attitude, trying to go on with their tolerant practices but without enhancing their importance as alternative policies deserving a new legal framework, different from the UN conventions. As regards the obligations of the International treaties, but also their limits, let me remind you what happened in Italy ten years ago. In 1993 a referendum was proposed to depenalize drug use, and the Costitutional Court was due to give a response on its legitimacy. Although the 1988 UN convention demands the member countries to establish personal use as a criminal offence, the referendum was declared legitimate by the Costitutional Court referring to art.3, pr.4.: some months later it took place and was approved by the majority of voters.
In 1999, some members from the INCB came to Italy , where they met deputies of the Ministry of Justice. The INCB strongly complained about the depenalization of personal use, claiming it to be in breach of the Conventions. But they were rebuked by the Italian deputies, in the name of the authonomy of every country and of the differencies among legal systems (In Italy, for example, there's no principle of opportunity in legal action).
Countries like Italy or the Netherlands have such a political status as to be able to defend their authonomy against the UN agencies like INCB. But what about other countries with minor influence like the Eastern European countries that are going to join European Union next year?
For these reasons, I believe that Europe should work towards a reform of the UN agencies, as well as the UN policies, so that every country can establish its own drug policy, respectful of the different cultures.

FREDRICK POLAK, psychiatrist, Health Service, Municipality of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The term "alternative drug policies" is discussed in this presentation in the wider sense of the regulation of drug markets, and not in the restricted sense in which it is too often used, referring only to the treatment of health problems related to drug use - as if drug policy is no more than the policy of the treatment of drug addiction.

After a discussion of the Dutch soft drugs policy, of some projects in the care system for problematic drug users and of a few more or less informal projects on the boundary between legal and (semi-)illegal policy, some thoughts and conclusions will be presented relevant to the question whether the present international legal framework can still be considered adequate to meet actual demands.

FRANCIS CABALLERO – Lawyer and writer, France
Considering that the immensity and augmentation of the trafficking of illicit drugs produces devastating effects on world economy, justice and health;

Concerning the world economy: Drug trafficking is linked to other criminal activities such as arms trafficking and terrorism, threatening stability, safety and sovereignty of nations. Drug trafficking is facilitated by drug prohibition which finances drug cartels and mafias, stimulates corruption and contaminates the banking system. The laundering of drug money is perverting world economy. The cost of drug prohibition is increasing without limit. Police and customs officials are incapable of intercepting more than 10 % of illegal drugs offered for sale.

Concerning social issues: Prohibition of drugs leads inevitably to an increase of criminality and delinquency due to the artificial price inflation of some drugs. Prohibition results in crimes against persons and property, to prostitution and re-selling of drugs by consumers. The number of drug users and abusers increases every year without fail.

The classes of citizens most endangered by prohibition are the poorest ones and generally the victims of discrimination, including racism in the application of law enforcement;

Concerning justice and legal matters: Prohibition of drugs is causing increasing repression and denial of citizens’ fundamental liberties and basic human rights.

Specifically by imprisoning drug consumers, Article 4 of the Convention on Human Rights is violated in rejection of the principle that liberty consists in the right to act as one chooses without infringing the rights of others. Drug prohibition is the source of exceptional law enforcement that threatens individual liberties. Drug related offences are filling the world’s jails to no good end. The inability of law to remedy social problems of drug use diminishes confidence in the law and its application.

Concerning questions of public health: Drug prohibition produces the most extreme and grave consequences for users and the health care system alike. Prohibition is a major obstacle for promotion of information, prevention and the effectiveness of health care. Due to the uncontrolled quality of drugs, prohibition is the main cause of drug overdose deaths. The legal restrictions on the availability of syringes and needles and resulting difficulty in obtaining them produces many victims to blood-borne diseases such as AIDS. The marginalization of HIV- positive or hepatitis-infected users distances them from the health care system and thus causes further spread of disease.

JEAN-PIERRE GALLAND - Collectif d’Information et de Recherche Cannabique, France

France is one of the European countries together with Sweden, which is well known for its very hard law enforcement on drugs… A law implemented in 1970, and which punishes among other offenses, the simple private use and even the presentation of drugs in a favourable light, with prison sentences.

An OFDT inquiry (French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction) about the way that French people are viewing the drugs issue, is proving that minds are going forward. The official discourse, obliged by reality, is moving also. As France has signed all international treaties, President Chirac is blocked on this issue. Therefore, it is the duty for all organisations to demonstrate during the Vienna meeting that, in reality, things are going in another way.

Benjamin Mancroft, House of Lords, United Kingdom

Europe’s role in Drug in Drug Policy Reform.

The foundations on which today’s drug policies were built were very different from the position in which we find ourselves today.

The austerity of post war Europe of the 1940’s and 1950’s had given way to a new affluence, and with it a new confidence, particularly amongst the younger generation, born and raised in a world far removed from the depression and war that had dominated their parent’s lives.

The culture of the USA, with its music, its dislike of authority, and its objection to war (particularly in Vietnam) created a different set of dynamics, and these dynamics were alien, and therefore frightening to a political establishment from an earlier era.

Alongside the many new and different facets of this world, vastly improved communications led to a spread of ideas that was far faster than anything that had happened before, so fast as to be quite alarming. One of these new ideas was the spread of drug taking.

Of course, every society uses drugs in some form or another. Here in Europe, with a few exceptions we had confined ourselves to alcohol, which we had over centuries become used to, including accepting the not inconsiderable damage that excess use and alcohol addiction caused both to individuals, and from time to time to quite large groups within society.

Alcohol use itself, while not a moral issue for most, was regarded as immoral amongst some minority religious groups, but it was on the basis of potential damage that governments had intervened in the alcohol market, most notably, although uniquely and unsuccessfully, when the USA introduced prohibition between the wars.

I suspect that it was from a fear born of ignorance that led European governments of the 1960’s to adopt the policy we now call prohibition, because, interestingly it was one of the few policy initiatives that faced virtually no party political opposition. As a student of politics, I am aware how rare this level of cross party agreement is; sadly, it is also invariably disastrous.

The philosophy behind this policy was, and remains, that some drugs (they vary a little from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but usually include heroin, cocaine, cannabis, acid, amphetamines, and a variety of derivatives and compounds of them) cause harm to those who take them. They also cause harm to the families of users, and those communities in which drugs are used. While this is a pretty broad generalisation, it is not wholly inaccurate, although, of course, the level of harm caused varies from negligible to totally destructive.

It was felt that, in order to avoid this harm, the obvious and logical step to take was to prevent, or significantly reduce use of such drugs by making their use, and the importation and supply of such drugs, illegal, and consequently subject to the criminal law.

In the UK, for example, Parliament enacted the Misuse of Drugs Act, a complex and comprehensive piece of legislation which was passed and enacted over a two year period between 1971 and 1973.

Most other European countries and other western democracies progressed along a similar route.

Over a period of years a number of treaties were enacted to achieve international harmony; to pressurise governments that had taken a different, and sometimes indifferent, approach; to attempt to achieve a degree of cohesion in addressing what was correctly perceived to be an international problem, in that the supply of these drugs involved a number of different countries. Co-operation and harmony in law enforcement were seen as vital in achieving success. Indeed, until the advent of international terrorism in recent years, I doubt that the international community has co-operated so closely in its attempts to face a particular challenge.

Thirty years on may be a convenient moment to review this policy, particularly in light of the approaching conference in Vienna of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, in April.

First and foremost it cannot be controversial to conclude that the primary purpose of this policy has failed. Extensive and intensive international co-operation to restrict or reduce the trade and consumption of these drugs has not resulted in either a reduction in trade or a reduction in consumption.

Indeed, while I am cautious of statistics, particularly in this field, it is now often admitted that the illegal drugs trade is the second biggest industry in the world, second only to the arms industry, greater even than oil, banking or chemicals. Whether this is correct or not, I do not know, but I have not heard it contradicted by anyone in a position to do so.

Figures for drug use are now meaningless. What is clear is that, throughout the western world, drug use is endemic, and although there are inevitably variations from one country to another, perhaps more as a consequence of different methods of collecting data, and differing cultures, rather than actual use, most people agree that use is continuing to grow, in all areas. Drug use is in-bedded in western culture in a way that the politicians of thirty years ago could not have dreamed in their worst nightmares.

But there has been another, and to many people’s mind, more serious side effect of this failure of policy, and that is the crime problem that stems from it.

The Misuse of Drugs Act in the UK is strange in that it does not, in fact prohibit drug use, or supply; it attempts to regulate it. Under the Act the only drug that is actually prohibited is cannabis. Drugs such as heroin and cocaine, arguably more dangerous drugs, are placed in a category known as ‘controlled drugs’.

In practice this means that a group of commodities, perceived by the law to be dangerous, are effectively controlled by criminal gangs. These criminal gangs encourage the manufacture of drugs, they trade, market, import, supply and distribute drugs, at an artificially high price, purely for their own profit. Anyone who wants to buy these drugs has to pay the inflated price that the black market demands.

A significant number of people, as we know, want to buy them for recreational purposes, and another group, addicts, are entrapped in a world where they suffer not only from addiction, an unsatisfactory way of life to put it mildly, but where, in order to feed their addiction, they feel compelled to commit an incredible amount of crime in order to fund their addiction.

It is important to spend a moment looking at this state of affairs.

In the UK we now send more people to prison than at any time in our history, and more than any other country in the EU. At least 40% of these prisoners are in prison for drug related offences, probably more. This means either offences committed in the course of supplying drugs, or by criminals competing for a share of the market, (what we now call gang crime, or organised crime, which is closely linked to prostitution, and in particular child prostitution), violent crime committed under the influence of drugs (a relatively small category), or acquisitive crime, which is crime committed in order to raise the money needed to buy drugs.

In the UK, recent research by York University suggests that the cost to the community of theses drug related problems is somewhere between £10 and £18 billion each year. That does not include the £500 million that the British taxpayer spends on healthcare for drug users.

Whichever way you look at it drugs are now the biggest cause of crime, and arguably constitute the greatest social problem facing the UK. I do not think that the situation is very different in many other countries now, both in Europe, the Americas, or much of the rest of the world.

I don’t think it is unreasonable, therefore, to suggest that we should look carefully at the structures that permit this situation to exist.

There are really only two things that governments can actively do about drug use. First, we can seek to control the supply, and secondly we can seek to control the demand. While it may not be popular in the EU today, I am an old fashioned free marketeer – by which I mean in this context that I believe that it is difficult, if not downright dangerous to seek to ‘buck the market’, as we have in relation to drugs. Having done that we have fooled ourselves, by the language we use that we have constructed a meaningful policy.

We do not actually have drug prohibition in the UK, but we have adopted a regime of controls that make us believe that we have, when what we have really done is abdicated control to criminals. I believe that that is dangerous and irresponsible. If governments really believe that drugs are dangerous, then they should take control back from the criminals, and manage the market themselves.

The state must be the sole supplier of drugs; regulating the market, controlling the price, and removing both the profit element that causes such anguish to users, and which provides the fuel for the black market itself.

Of course, there are those who regard what is often called legalisation as some form of capitulation, but this view, while superficially attractive, demonstrates a basic misunderstanding.

This is no more legalisation, than the present system is prohibition. Language is terribly important, and we have to stop using language that frightens people, and is not a true reflection of the situation that currently prevails.

We don’t have prohibition at present, and we don’t want legalisation in the future. What we do need is a properly controlled market in drugs, free from criminal influence, where users are not forced into crime, where police cells and prisons are not crammed with victims of the black market. We also need adequate resources diverted from a war on drugs which is expensive, pointless, and probably without end, into providing the healthcare and social services that addicts and other users need.

I accept that there is a case for liberalising the law, but I do not subscribe to it. Although I passionately believe that the state should only interfere in the lives of private citizens if there is a demonstrable case, in this case I believe that the states of Europe, and beyond must interfere, because both public health and public safety demand it.

It is one of the primary duties of government to protect their citizens from the effects of crime, particularly violent crime, and present policies in Europe are promoting both crime and violence.

It is also the duty of government to provide appropriate health and social services. As a provider of healthcare services for drug users and their families in the UK, I am only too aware that government rhetoric, which recognises the need, is currently unable to provide those services, in part because of the amount being spent, without demonstrable benefit, on the criminal justice system.

As a provider of drug prevention services, both in Europe and beyond, I know only too well that young people are more likely than ever to become engaged in a level of drug use that has the potential to ruin their lives, as never before, and that no government within Europe is even beginning to devote the resources to this essential area, that it should.

A number of concerns have been raised about adopting this policy, and they should not be brushed aside but addressed, carefully.

First, it is widely believed that by re-gaining control of the drugs market, and becoming the monopoly supplier of drugs, the state will inevitably facilitate an increase in drug use. This is of course possible. However, we need to understand that drug use is increasing at present anyway, and it will inevitably take time to reverse this process. It will be essential to allow local conditions to determine the level and method of control to be employed. Price is obviously a factor – too low a price, and there is an incentive to increase use, too high a price, and the user is driven back to the black market. The key to this is not, therefore price alone, although it is an important factor, but rather the method of retailing holds the key.

Large scale suppliers of drugs can only operate, and make profits, if they have an ability to retail. Many, if not all, drug retailers are themselves users, selling drugs to fund their own habit. If they no longer have to fund an expensive habit themselves, and at the same time risk a severe penalty, their incentive to sell drugs is largely removed. Without retailers, the large-scale dealer is paralysed.

In part, this perception of a massive increase in use is the result of a misconception that the only alternative to the current unregulated black market is an unregulated white market. This stems from the mistaken belief that states have some control over the drug market today, which they would relinquish in the event of a change. This si an important example of how little understood this issue is, and why we must select our words with care, to promote a better understanding of the reality.

Secondly, it is argued that by moving in this direction, governments would send out a message that taking drugs had become acceptable. I have never been particularly enamoured of the power of government messages. I do not think governments are public relations organisations, whose primary role is to ‘put out messages’. Rather, I believe it is a government’s task to adopt sensible and responsible policies, and, if necessary, ‘sell’ them to their citizens. It should also be noted that most European governments have been telling their people for years that drug taking is wrong, and yet drug use has risen. I am not certain how many young people take much notice of government messages, but not too many, I suspect. But, nevertheless, changes such as these must be managed slowly and carefully, so as not to appear to condone use.

Some people undoubtedly believe that to move in this direction would be immoral, and would represent a form of surrender. Again, it is the task of politicians to do what is right, not what is most comfortable. If the alternative is to continue down the present path of failure, surely that is immoral, and represents a far worse kind of capitulation.

What I am advocating is undoubtedly a significant change. As such it should not be entered into lightly. The best place to start is with debate. Those who reject even the notion of a debate are not to be trusted – if you cannot win your argument by reason, then you have no place in our world. The policies of the state must stand up to rigorous examination, or be discarded. Equally, significant social change must only be embarked upon after widespread debate, and with extensive evaluation.

Part of the purpose of making the changes that I suggest, is to make further resources available from savings in the criminal justice system, to provide better treatment services for drug users who need them, and evidence based prevention programmes to protect future generations. It is only through prevention and treatment that we will successfully address the problems caused by drugs; not through the courts and prisons, although they will always retain an important role. I believe that the Rule of Law is one of the most important principals by which we live. The current international crisis in relation to Iraq proves that I am not alone in this view. A similar situation exists in relation to our response to drugs, and we do ourselves no service, and potentially a great deal of damage if we continue to allow the laws of so many countries to be brought into disrepute.

In Vienna in April there is a unique opportunity to examine the treaties that allow the international market in drugs to remain within the control of criminals. We must persuade governments to amend those treaties so as to regain control of the market in drugs, to regulate it, to manage the supply of drugs, and determine the price that best serves the community, not the criminal.

Those treaties are important. They must be reinforced to allow governments to pursue criminals, but they must be amended to prevent states from making criminals out of our children. They must be used to build a world where there is no profit, and a great deal of risk in supplying drugs, where those who have drug problems receive the help and care that they need, and where parents can raise their children in the confident knowledge that the state is there to help, not to make a difficult situation even worse.

MANUELA CARMENA CASTRILLO - Penal Judge, Spain

One of the most terrible consequences of drug prohibition is the lack of visibility of the effects it has produced. Prohibitionist policy has caused a dramatic number of deaths in developed societies. For many years, it has propagated the incurable AIDS epidemy and on the other side, the lack of control on production, sale and posology of illegal drugs has led to an important death toll.

In Spain, since 1995, 32.000 people have died as a result of AIDS. Of them, 55 % were infected as a consequence of sharing syringes for the injection of heroin. We can say that unfortunately 17.000 people died, not because the consumed heroin, but because they were not allowed to use a drug to which they were addicted in a legal and aseptic way.

Likewise, we can affirm without a doubt that at least 10.000 people died in this same period as a result of adulteration, overdoses etc. These deaths were not caused by the drug itself but by the uncivilised and unsafe way in which the consumers were taking them.

MARTIN JELSMA - Coordinator Drugs & Democracy programme – Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

By 1998, when the United Nations convened a Special Session on drugs, there was already overwhelming evidence that the current approach to global drugs control had failed, given the continuing rise in consumption and production. However, no evaluation of what was wrong with current drug policy took place. Instead, unrealistic pledges were recycled, this time aiming at eliminating all drug production by the year 2008.

How was the fragile consensus behind these unrealistic pledges constructed? How will the international community in April in Vienna assess the progress achieved and difficulties encountered in meeting the UNGASS goals and targets? The mid-term review appears not to be aimed at learning lessons from genuine evaluation in order to improve our effectiveness, but rather at maintaining the political commitment to keep up the good fight. Nations and UN agencies will clap one another on the shoulder for all efforts done without questioning whether those efforts have had any impact at all on the availability and use of illicit drugs.

Progress has been most unsatisfactory, not because not enough of the measures have been implemented but because the strategy is flawed. A ‘drug-free world’ is an illusion. The adopted strategies, goals and targets have to be genuinely evaluated with an open mind towards future policy directions. A series of recommendations for the mid-term review and for the period 2003-2007 will be given, aimed at breaking the impasse in four crucial areas: the introduction of harm/risk reduction in the UN drugs debate, the opening up of room for manoeuvre on supply side, the undertaking of efforts to improve the climate of the UN-level drugs debate, and a revision of the drug control conventions.

Special TNI edition for Vienna will be presented:

Change of Course – An Agenda for Vienna
Drugs & Conflict Debate Papers Nr. 6,
Transnational Institute, Amsterdam, March 2003.