Subject: Letter addressed to Dr. Joycelyn ELDERS, Surgeon General - Health and Human Service Dept. USA
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X-Comment: The Transnational Radical Party List
From: Marco Taradash, MEP executive secretary of the International
Antiprohibitionist League & Emma Bonino, MP, Deputy Speaker,
Secretary of the Transnational Radical Party
to support Elder's position about drug legalization.
Date: Rome December 20, 1993
Dear Dr. Elders,
on behalf of the organs we represent, the transnational Radical Party and
the International Antiprohibitionist League (IAL), we wish to express our
highest appreciation for the position you took concerning the need to
legalize the production, trade and distribution of narcotics.
A few years ago, in November 1991, we were arrested by the New York police
force during an act of civil disobedience in front of City Hall. We were
distributing sterile syringes, the sale of which is forbidden without a
medical prescription. Our purpose was to draw attention on the ever-growing
risk of AIDS infection related to the exchange of dirty needles. Since
then, the health policy on drugs has made some progress both in Europe and
in the United States, and the harm reduction policy supported by the many
European (and now even American) cities that signed the Frankfurt
resolution has ceased to be a taboo. Regretfully, the persistence of the
prohibitionist system hampers any effective and sensible policy.
A few years ago, the Radical Party and the IAL launched an international
campaign with the aim of changing the prohibitionist legislation for the
very reasons you outlined.
Prohibition has admittedly not reduced drug consumption. It has instead
generated a series of negative effects which represent a further evil,
which is often far worse than drug addiction itself.
Prohibition has turned an individual problem that can be tackled only in
medical and social terms into a social cost which burdens the community at
large and which takes countless forms: an organized crime which is richer
and more powerful than ever; a constantly growing urban crime rate because
of the cost of the illegal substances; corruption in the public
administration and among the police forces; introduction of huge quantities
of laundered money into the legal economy, with the ensuing destruction of
the civil and social fabric of ever new territories and environments; the
tightening up of the penalties and repressive techniques and consequent
reduction of individual freedoms; the distortion of the economy and
political life of the producer countries of the basic substances.
On the other hand, the forced illegality of the phenomenon thwarts any
attempt to seek a concrete remedy to the reasons and effects of drug
addiction, and produces at least three pernicious effects also on single
individuals who make use of illegal drugs. These people risk imprisonment
because they are forced by need to become pushers themselves or to commit
crimes against society; they risk death by overdose because of the
adulteration of the substances; they risk AIDS infection because they use
dirty needles. Moreover, the fact that widely differing substances such as
marijuana and its derivatives on the one hand, and heroin, cocaine and
crack on the other are all considered illegal to the same extent, is
another crucial factor in encouraging the transition from substances that
are not particularly harmful to substances that cause serious damage.
Nonetheless, awareness on the damage caused by prohibition is increasing
throughout the world. Thus, your appeal has greatly stirred the debate on
the issue. Your speech has shaken people's consciences numbed by
indifference, resignation or the ruthless propaganda used by the advocates
of the status quo.
The Radical Party and the IAL are operating in various directions to
achieve a reform of the drug policy. Namely, they have promoted an
international campaign for the revision or repeal of the UN international
conventions which underlie the prohibitionist regime. Some of the most
eminent experts in the field of economics, law, criminology and the fight
against organized crime and drug abuse contribute to or support these
initiatives. Among them, Ethan Nadelman, Lester Grinspoon, professor of
psychiatry, Ralph Salerno, former head of the Narcotics Bureau, Milton
Friedman, Nobel Prize, and many others.
We hope your courageous initiative will be successful, and will overcome
the irrational resistance to legalization which the Clinton Administration
has so far expressed. We thank you for having provided such an image of
courage and strength. You have given a precious contribution to all those
who fight the material powers and ideological distortions that underlie
prohibition on drugs, despite its failure and the consequent sufferance for
humanity.
Emma Bonino, MP
Secretary of the Radical Party
Marco Taradash, MEP
IAL executive secretary
(Documents under separate mail)
