CATANIA Report

[D-Notice]

http://action.encod.org/ic3/faces/public/ic3/home/report

Recommends to the Council and to the European Council, when defining the future EU Drugs Strategy (2005-2012), and with general reference to EU policy on drugs, that they should:

a) redefine European cooperation on a drugs policy... based on a scientific approach, respect for civil and political rights and protection of the lives and health of individuals;

c) take account of the fact that the assessments made to date of the six main objectives set by the EU Drugs Strategy (2000-2004) show that none of them achieved favourable results...

g) increase social and scientific research on illegal substances for relevant medical and social purposes;

j) carry out a detailed evaluation of the effectiveness of the implementation of the previous strategy, with particular regard to:

prevention of use and dependence,
a reduction in the supply of and the demand for illicit drugs,
the limitation of social damage (marginalisation),
the limitation of health damage,
reduction in drug-related petty crime and organised crimeand therefore not to adopt the new EU Drugs Strategy (2005-2012) without knowing the real results achieved by the previous Strategy, as measured by the relevant technical, scientific, legislative and political assessments;

o) improve the coordination and exchange of information within the Union on drugs policy...which also takes account of the encouraging results achieved and fully documented by the various Member States , and other European countries , that are implementing alternative drugs policies;

r) increase the availability of harm-reduction programmes... among drug users;

s) set minimum standards for rehabilitation measures... to that end, particular efforts must be made to promote social rehabilitation;

t) lay much greater stress on harm reduction, information, prevention, care and attention to protecting the lives and health of people with problems caused by the use of illicit substances, and define measures to prevent them from being marginalised, rather than implementing repressive strategies which verge on and have frequently led to violations of human rights;

u) set up rehabilitation programmes for offenders/users as alternatives to prison, since such programmes have been found to be effective in those countries which have implemented them;

v) step up and provide appropriate funding for the information measures required to provide information on illicit substances and prevent drug use, particularly in schools... and curb the negative repercussions of drug use and the associated risks;

w) place emphasis on stepping up information measures, which should be based on scientific knowledge about the consequences of various types of drugs... so as to be able to warn everyone in clear, strong terms...

x) define and exponentially step up the involvement and participation of drug addicts and users of illicit substances, civil society, NGOs, the voluntary sector and the general public in resolving drug-related problems... by setting up, on an experimental basis, easily accessible informal centres pursuing an anti-prohibitionist strategy and a harm-reduction strategy;

ab) ... take into consideration the possibility of launching pilot projects for the industrial manufacture of legal products derived from plants covered by the 1961 Convention, such as coca leaf and Indian hemp;

ac) provide and ensure access to substitution programmes, with particular reference to the prison environment, while encouraging alternatives to imprisonment for users of illicit substances or for related minor and non-violent offences;

Hopefully this will be passed so the drugs laws throughout the EU will be changed from prohibition to harm-reduction.