Liafax [EN] N. 18 from the IAL

NEWS FROM THE IAL :

"SPRING OF THE OPIUM" WHO SEEDS PROHIBITION COLLECTS BUT BLOOD


Since the beginning of this year the UN office on Drugs and Crime has issued "alarming" data regarding the production of opium by-products in Afghanistan. From 30.500 cultivated hectares of poppy in 2002, in 2003 there was a rise till up to 80 000, and one expects the harvest of Mai and June to exceed 4900 tons of opiate equivalent to 490 tons of pure heroin up to 97%.


In an interview given mid March to The Observer, the president of the World Bank James Wolfensohn, had stated that the cultivation of opium had reached the levels of 2002 and that it threatened to exceed those reached before the rise of theTaliban in 1999. According to Wolfensohn the price of the "raw material" went from 100 to 150 dollars per kilo with regard to a total turnover of 1,400 million dollars, 200 million more than the entire aid supplied or promised by the international community to Afghanistan.


Statement by Marco Perduca, Transnational Radical Party representative to the United Nations and Secretary General of the International Antiprohibitionist League:


Once again the United Nations system supplies data with respect to the phenomenon of narcotics that confirm the increase of the production of illicit substances in those regions of the world where for many years rigid prohibitionist policies have been applied in drug related matters. Politics that are often implemented by alliances that are going or have gone from the taliban clergy to warlords -that have converted themselves into today's peace keepers- or even to the worst authoritarian governments of the planet in the desperate attempt of eradicating all drugs from the face of the earth within 2008.


At the "UN Commission on drugs and narcotics ministerial meeting" held in Vienna last April, only a small part of the debate had been dedicated to the situation in Afghanistan - where nearly 70% of the worlds opium is being produced, by no means has the impact of the prohibitionist policies in this region been taken into consideration, instead one has focused exclusively on the expectations of a vague international collaboration or on the necessity of reinforcing a "security belt" in remote zones such as the Afghani mountains where everything is hidden, from drugs over weapons to even Al Quaeda's leadership.


The prohibitionist seeds, even those of the Taliban- to which the international press has always granted great importance and unanimous consensus, arriving to the point of even absolving de facto, the crimes against humanity, women, or the non-Taliban, committed by the Taliban war clergy of the Mullah Omar - can not be but the promise of a huge harvest, worthy of the biggest and ruthless multinationals of organized crime.


At the UN meeting in Vienna, the international community has confirmed the failure of it's own prohibitionist strategy, without wanting to take into consideration the slightest appraisal of the drug-control policies that emanate from the three UN conventions. This ideological approach will not only continue to make poppies bloom all over the world, from the golden triangle to Colombia, but it will also continue to stain them with the blood of those forced to live like slaves in the Asian fields or even like criminals in the streets of Europe and the United States.


To the prohibitionist religion one needs to oppose the essence of freedom and dialogue, the pragmatic approach that the International Antiprohibitionist League and the Transnational Radical Party are promoting through their world wide initiative for the antiprohibitionist reform of the UN conventions on drugs. A proposal that focuses on the legal control of production, consumption and trade of all substances that are currently prohibited by the international community, one possible solution to the deaths caused by prohibition.


The Appeal addressed to Kofi Annan can be subscribed on-line at www.antiprohibitionist.org . In the beginning of May, over 8000 citizens from over 92 countries amongst whom 250 legislators had already lent their support to the radical antiprohibitionist proposals.



EUROPEAN UNION
European Commissioner Chris Patten, answering a query by Euro-MP Marco Cappato, said that 'the EU does not support herbicidal spraying of Colombian poppy fields'. Cappato declared himself satisfied by this and added that he hoped that 'the EU would ask the US to stop such programmes at once'.

U.S.A.
Washington: A press conference on the reform of the UN drug treaties was organised by Euro-MP Marco Cappato, Canadian Senator Pierre Nolin and the IAL. Cappato explained that an international network of 250 members of various parliaments supported such reforms, and that the proposed legalisation law now before the Canadian Parliament was a model to follow.

NEWS FROM THE WORLD :

2929 29/04/2003
AFGHANISTAN
CROPS
NEWSDAY (USA)
For an Afghan peasant, poppies represent the only means of survival. Grain crops net him $2 a month, poppies $1.50 a day.


2921 24/04/2003
SWITZERLAND
CONSUMPTION
NEUE ZUERICHER ZEITUNG
Report on the consumption of drugs, legal and illegal, among eleven-to-sixteen-year-olds for the year 2000: One in six regularly smokes tobacco. Most drink more alcohol, especially beer and 'Alkoholpops', but to get properly drunk they turn to hard liquors. Cannabis, Ecstasy and cocaine are on the increase.


2922 30/04/2003
GERMANY
CONSUMPTION
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG
Drug Report, 2002: Deaths from illegal drugs are down by 17.5% to 1,513 over 2001 (which was down by 10% over 2000). But deaths from alcohol and tobacco remain steady. Hence Caspers-Merck declares that she plans to intensify her efforts to combat 'the daily vices' of alcohol, cigarettes and pharmaceuticals.


2927 28/04/2003
U.S.A. (Oklahoma)
LAWS
JOIN TIGHTER ONLINE
The House of Representatives of Oklahoma have voted against a law that would have reduced possession of cannabis from a felony to a misdemeanour. The proposal's aim was to relieve prison overcrowding and especially the workload of the police, so that forces might be better directed against serious crime.


2926 29/04/2003
UNITED KINGDOM
LAWS
IC.NEWCASTLE.CO.UK
A circular by the Ministry of Education establishes that schools can undertake anti-drug tests on pupils only with their parents' prior consent, and only if such tests are co-ordinated with prevention and information activities.


2924 25/04/2003
UNITED KINGDOM (Scotland)
POLITICS
THE SCOTSMAN (Glasgow)
According to the Scottish Police Federation, British anti-drug laws are 'dated and ineffectual'. In spite of having Europe's harshest penalties, Britain has seen drug use rise steadily over the past thirty years.


2920 24/04/2003
FRANCE
THE WAR ON DRUGS
LE FIGARO (Paris)
Minister of the Interior N. Sarkozy has declared that there are no 'light' and 'heavy' drugs, that all are harmful. Statistics on consumption are worrisome, hence the law has to come down hard even on smokers of the mere occasional joint, possibly by confiscating his/her moped. Distinguishing between legal and illegal drugs, he maintains, is a form of obscurantism, and the 1970 law must be changed to augment its deterrent power.


2923 24/04/2003
U.S.A.
THE WAR ON DRUGS
NORTHWEST HERALD
In the course of a meeting with students, Senator Peter Fitzgerald branded American drug policy in Colombia 'a failure'. 'Ever since 1980', he said, 'we've been sending financial and military aid down there, but nothing has ever been resolved. Conclusion: we're doing a bad job.'


2928 24/04/2003
COLOMBIA
THE WAR ON DRUGS
LA HORA
According to attorney-at-law Baruch Vega, who claims to have been an intermediary with the US government for the surrender of 114 Colombian drug traffickers, FARC guerrillas control about forty per cent of the Colombian cocaine traffic. The total annual turnover, he says, is between 2 and 2.8 billion dollars.


2925 27/04/2003
RUSSIA
THE WAR ON DRUGS
REUTERS
President Vladimir Putin plans to increase Russian military presence in Tajikistan in an effort to stem terrorism and drug trafficking. As of now there are already 19,000 Russian soldiers in the country.


2930 30/04/2003
THAILAND
THE WAR ON DRUGS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has declared his 'war on Drugs' as done and finished. His figures claim a ninety per cent 'clean-up' and 270,000 addicts launched on the paths to recovery. But NGO figures speak of 2,270 suspected deaths and of police methods to be considered, at the very least, questionable.

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