As reported, the Transnational Radical Party's request to speak on item 6(b)(Implementation of the international drug control treaties: International Narcotics Control Board)has been rejected by the UNDCP. Therefor the following statement has been authorized for official distribution at the present session.

Commission on Narcotic Drugs

43rd session

Statement of the TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY

agenda item 6(b)

Thank you Mr. Chairman,

At this time the Transnational Radical Party wishes to draw the Commission's attention on two aspects of the drug question: freedom of speech and freedom of choice.

Freedom of speech: On the eve of the internet era, when business, commerce, information, stock trading, consulting and advocacy travel through the world wide web, this with great surprise that we have read the International Narcotic Control Board's recommendation that governments should adopt more strict rules on freedom of speech on the internet simply because there are websites with information on illicit drugs. Past experience has shown that censorship does not work, and that it is a costly exercise.

Freedom of choice:

Throughout the 1990s, developed countries, particularly Europeans, have started several pilot projects to implement approaches to the drug question derived from the idea of reducing the widespread and systematic harm caused by drug abuse. Among the most significant and effective, we have seen the creation of safe environments where drug users and abusers are allowed to inject narcotics in a sterile place.

The main objectives of these experiments take into consideration is the need to find viable solutions to the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as well as other diseases, the separation of ill individuals from an unsafe and criminal environment in which drug addicts usually gravitate and last but not least, the monitoring of such habits with the view of initiating eventual individual treatments.

In the 1999 INCB Report several recommendations are made to the 153 States parties to the 1988 UN Convention Against Ilicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances to respect and implement the provisions contained in those document. In that same section, the INCB states that tolerant approaches to the drug question, as well as injecting rooms, could facilitate illicit drug trafficking.

Any time these pilot projects are conceived, launched and implemented, the main motivations have always been the research of alternative ways to deal with the drug problem and its different aspects.

Recent news have confirmed that plans to set up safe injecting rooms for heroin addicts will go ahead in at least three Australian cities, including Sydney and Melbourne, in future months. Australia will add its name to the list of other states such as The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Germany which all have experimented with injection rooms in the past as a way to limit the spread of infectious disease, decrease risk of overdose, and get drug users off the street.

The centers are considered integral to a "harm reduction" approach to drug policies, which seeks to reduce the damage done both by drugs and by criminal-justice driven prohibitionist policies.

We salute Mr. Garry Humphreys, Health Minister of Canberra, for his outspoken response to the INCB criticism and we commend those who are of the view that plans for safe injecting rooms are consistent with their countries international obligations and urge them to join forces in re-launching these projects all over the world.

Other projects have recently been launched, always after a "bi-partisan" agreement in: Spain, where at the beginning of this year Injecting Rooms have been integrated in the =93National Plan On Drugs=94 (Piano nacional sobre la droga) and in Germany, where on February 25, the German Parliament voted to legalize safe "Fixer Rooms"(Fixerstube) for drug users in cities that have their state=92s approval for the programs. It must be noted that in the past 10 years some 13 Injecting Rooms were "illegally" operational throughout Spain but tolerated by the local police. Moreover, always at the end of February, in Canada, in order to try to face the worst hepatitis C epidemic in the Western world, health experts have called for the creation of North America's first site for the safe injection of illegal drugs.

We completely endorse British Columbia health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall's position, who recently stated that "We have to stop looking at [the drug question] as a criminal issue rather than a health issue. Mr. Kendall's comments followed the disclosure by a leading AIDS specialist that up to 90 per cent of injection drug users in British Colubia are infected with hepatitis C the highest reported rate in the Western world, according to the director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

In conclusion Mr. Chairman, The Transnational Radical Party wishes to bring to the attention of this august body the fact that in the majority of the cases in which - from the United States to Switzerland to Italy - common sense policies on drugs have been presented to the electorate, as propositions or referenda, informed citizens have always opted for reforms including the legalization of medical marijuana as well as the decriminalization of non-violent drug related offences.

For all these reasons, we call on all progressive governments that have experimented Drug Injection Rooms to express their views on this subject at the 43rd session of the CND, and to promptly provide the Commission, as well as the INCB, with data and their official evaluation on the above-mentioned projects. Evidence is on their side and is hardly disputable.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.