Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-14-Speech-2-322"
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"en.20041214.17.2-322"2
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".
Mr President, this is an excellent report which we on this side of the House support. We support it for many of the reasons which the previous speaker mentioned, including in terms of the science and pragmatic facts of this debate. We do not take an overtly ideological stance, but there is some ideology in the debate and the ideology says that, unless we deal with harm reduction, unless we understand addiction and unless we understand the explosion in crime which leads from drugs to the domestic crime that we suffer in all of our European Union Member States, we cannot tackle the problem efficiently and effectively.
This report – which was a much amended report with approximately 106 amendments in committee – shows two things. One is that there is an active interest in this House in an EU drugs strategy. Secondly we all know as MEPs that there is a very strong public appetite for there to be an EU strategy. So what is that strategy to be? The answer to that question is very much contained in this report. For example, in this report we talk not about being hard on drugs or soft on drugs, but about actually looking at intelligent harm-reduction strategies. We know the connections between drug use and HIV. If we ignore those in this House, then there will be further harm, further crime and further suffering.
We want to lay much greater stress on harm reduction, but also on rehabilitation. We want to provide appropriate funding for information measures and not to pretend that the public has sufficient information about this problem. We also want to take appropriate steps to prevent the profits of illegal drug-trafficking from being used to fund everything from international terrorism to other forms of crime. This report is thus not 'hard' or 'soft'. It is effective. It tackles crime, as well as the harm being done to individuals.
In this report we also urge governments and national parliaments to take effective measures to prevent drugs entering prisons. Mr Catania continually stressed this point, because it is too often ignored in Member States. It is for us in the European Union to tackle some of the difficult issues across Member States which sometimes individual Member States are not emphasising enough. Prisons are now multiplying the effects of drug harm. People are coming out of prisons and committing more crime. This is a serious issue for the European Union. There is a strong public appetite for us as MEPs and for the Commission to tackle drugs with an effective drugs strategy.
The old style of clichés and information about drugs has long gone. We now need a more effective strategy. This report places the right emphasis on harm reduction, tackling addiction and dealing with the source of drug problems, rather than expounding clichés about the effects. It is a good report which we will support. It has been much amended and I think that, in the light of those amendments, it is a report that the whole House should support. We on this side will do so."@en1
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