News From The Ial 17

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NEWS FROM THE IAL :

ITALY
The Radicali of Bologna ask you please to send a message to the president of the Central-Italian Regione of Emilia-Romagna, urging him to live up to his promise about an open discussion on the motion for therapeutic uses of cannabis. Make contact through.

NEWS FROM THE WORLD :

2915 21/04/2003
BRAZIL
AN ODDITY
O GLOBO (Rio de Janeiro)
Agents of the 31st Battalion of the Military confiscated handbills that invited drug-users to buy three 'papelotes' of cocaine and . . . win a big chocolate Easter egg. This happened in Rio's the notorious favela of Cesar Maia of Vargem .


2918 21/04/2003
U.S.A. (California)
NEW IDEAS
REUTERS
A California county and its mayor have decided to sue the federal government in an effort to legalise the use of therapeutic cannabis. This is the first such judicial appeal by any local authority. The promoters hope for a 'domino effect'.


2914 18/04/2003
ITALY
LAWS
ANSA
Communications minister Maurizio Gasparri has confirmed the proposal of a new law that would not only reintroduce punishment of consumers but make it obligatory by eliminating the discretionary powers of police and magistrates.


2912 22/04/2003
SAUDI ARABIA
LAWS
THE TIMES (London)
A Pakistani citizen found guilty of drug trafficking has been beheaded in public in Riad. No details of the arrest or trial were given out.


2919 19/04/2003
SWITZERLAND
POLITICSE
NEUE ZUERCHER ZEITUNG
Thomas Zeltner, director of the Public Health Department and head of the Swiss delegation to the Vienna Conference on Drugs, reconfirmed Switzerland's philosophy and policy of damage reduction and offered aid and advice to any interested party.


2911 22/04/2003
RUSSIA
POLITICS
LA PRENSA
The Kremlin is planning a new strategy for defeating the heroin 'barons'. Currently the police is only going after small-fry pushers and addicts, whilst the big fish go unmolested, well protected by corrupt functionaries . . . thus the explanation published by Victor Cherkésov, president of the 'Committee for the Fight Against the Drug Traffic'.


2916 19/04/2003
IRISH REPUBLIC
STATISTICS
IRISH EXAMINER
In the last ten years, drug deaths have increased tenfold. According to Tony Geoghean of the non-profit group Merchants Quay Ireland, this is due to the lack of information on drug matters and to the scant availability of pharmaceuticals like Naxolone.


2917 18/04/2003
ASIA / PAKISTAN
THE WAR ON DRUGS
THE BBC
The authorities have begun destroying poppy fields in the north, close to the Afghan border. There was not a little resistance from the locals, who see poppies as their only source of income.


2913 19/04/2003
PORTUGAL
THE WAR ON DRUGS
DIARIO DE NOTICIAS
Vitalino Canas, a Socialist MP and ex-minister for Portuguese drug policies, has come down hard on the intransigence of the UN Conventions. He favours the European view of damage reduction.


2909 21/04/2003
MEXICO
THE WAR ON DRUGS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mexican peones are substituting opium poppies for marijuana. Local gangs are importing Colombian cultivation methods, including shooting down police helicopters that would spray herbicides on the crops.


2910 22/04/2003
NORTH KOREA
THE WAR ON DRUGS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ever since a North Korean ship was impounded in Australia, quite insistent rumours are being heard about N.K.'s involvement in the drug trade to boost its moribund economy. Some months back this was also being bruited about in Japan.

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Editor in Chief: Marco Perduca
Director: Vincenzo Donvito
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