Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-08-Speech-2-148"
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"en.20030408.3.2-148"2
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"Mr President, the Irish Social Democrat, Mr De Rossa, believes that current drugs policy does not work. Will he find the solution in the Netherlands? Is it there that the most helpful models are to be found? Is the Netherlands an example to the rest of Europe?
Combating the drugs scourge is far too serious a matter to be left to individuals who are not prepared to take full responsibility on behalf of the present and future generations. My question to many of you in the Group of the Party of European Socialists and to the majority of you in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left is this: what support are you prepared to give to the parents of a teenage girl or boy when she or he tells mum and dad that the politicians, in their wisdom, have decriminalised drugs and that society has nothing against drugs. What support do you offer that teenager’s mother, Mr De Rossa and Mr Evans? What support do you offer his or her father, Mr De Rossa and Mr Evans? What message do you have? Is the Dutch model the modern one? Is this the outward-, forward-looking one? There are so many different concepts floating about. Put yourselves in the shoes of a real family, and imagine the message that is being sent out to the children and teenagers.
The attempts to legalise drugs constitute a serious infringement of the UN Convention on Drugs and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially Article 33 of the latter. I quote: ‘States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislative, administrative, social and educational measures, to protect children from the illicit use of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances as defined in the relevant international treaties, and to prevent the use of children in the illicit production and trafficking of such substances’.
My question to the rapporteur, Mrs Buitenweg, concerns the way in which she imagines Dutch policy to protect children’s rights and to strengthen the position of Dutch parents in telling their children, both younger and older, to resist drugs, including cannabis. I also wonder in what way the Netherlands is a model for the rest of Europe.
Mr Evans also addresses the issue of whether cannabis can be compared with alcohol. Apparently, the message, especially in Great Britain, is that cannabis should become as culturally accepted as alcohol is at present. Does this mean that you want culturally accepted drug use to extend to include cannabis? Not only do Swedish Christian Democrats reject this view; but so also, tomorrow, will a majority of Members of the European Parliament."@en1
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