Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-18-Speech-4-287"
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"en.19991118.15.4-287"2
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"Mr President, rapporteur, this drug programme primarily concerns people who are drug addicts and their families. They desperately need help. I therefore feel that it is very important to undertake an honest analysis of the results of the programme and to draw the necessary conclusions.
The aims of this drug control programme are first and foremost to reduce the supply and demand. Neither of these aims has been achieved. Irrespective of the age group, country and drug concerned, drug taking is increasing or stagnating despite the harsh penalties and much greater number of prosecutions at national and increasingly at European level. The same applies to the reduction in the supply of drugs. For a long time only 10% of the drug trade has been caught by the police. These shattering results are hushed up. Instead, the drug programme before us just contains a copy of the previous programme with cosmetic changes. Fortunately the Commission is undertaking an evaluation. However, an external assessment would clearly be better on this sensitive subject. In any case, the appropriate action will have to be taken.
Despite the lack of success of the programme, a large part of the financial resources in the context of the drug programme goes into combating drugs. For anything that is aimed at minimising the damage, there is a very small amount left over. The question remains, however, why this programme is not clearly aiming to achieve the hidden goals. We cannot escape the conclusion that the very fact of this programme’s existence is all that matters, and that in fact it serves different aims to those that have been stated. What does this mean? The drug programme is used to increase the legitimacy of the EU. Drug programmes therefore have a purely instrumental character. And because that is at the expense of the addicts, we urgently need to think again.
There is no ideal solution in drug policy, we all agree on that. But action must be taken. The urgent aim must be to minimise the damage and that must be firmly established in the drug programme. What that means in practice I shall show in four demands with which I shall now conclude.
Firstly, supply should be reduced to the minimum. Secondly, methadone programmes should be expanded in the EU and the tried and tested controlled practice of the handing in of heroin should be introduced. Thirdly, drugs users should be able to test drugs for their content and mixture. Only in this way can further damage be prevented; we therefore need EU-wide drug checking. Fourthly, city cooperation should be promoted, taken from the idea of the European Cities Drug Policy
as a prime example of a project that recognises – legal and illegal – drugs as belonging to society and lends support to people dealing responsibly with these drugs. We urgently need such a drug programme."@en1
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