Antiprohibitionist action report - September 23rd, 1996 - (Year 2) #7

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CORA |

| Association of

Radical | the Transnational

Antiprohibitionist | Radical Party

Coordination |

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OLD - Observatory of laws

on drugs

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PAA - PARLAMENTARIAN FOR

ANTIPROHIBITIONNIST ACTION

European campaign for

the revision of international

conventions

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CORA-ITALY

Via di Torre Argentina 76

00186 ROME

Tel:+39-6-68.97.91

Fax:+39-6-68.80.53.96

E-mail: cora.italia@agora.stm.it

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CORA-BELGIUM

Rue Belliard 97

c/o European Parliament

Rem 5.08

1040 BRUSSELS

Tel:+32-2-230.41.21 - 646.26.31

Fax:+32-2-230.36.70

E-mail: cora.belgique@agora.stm.it

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NEWS FROM CORA

**** EMMA BONINO, European Commissioner, will make the opening remarks (Thursday, Dec. 5th at 15.50) of the VIII CORA congress that will be held in Brussels until Dec. 7th. Whoever is interested in participating in the event may send a fax to: fax# +32-2-230.36.70 or e-mail: cora.belgique@agora.stm.it

*** ITALY, TURIN * Community councilman Carmelo Palma, national coordinator of CORA, presented and had approved a motion which invites the Parliament to rapidly approve laws that will depenalize the use of soft drugs and consent to the distribution of hard drugs such as heroin to addicts who live notoriously with these substances. As an experiment in Torino, this would mean that hard drugs could be consumed "under the supervision of social services, and without police intervention." (CORSERA, IL GIORNALE, IL MESSAGGERO, LA REPUBBLICA, LA STAMPA 11/09)

*** BELGIUM, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, TURIN PROPOSAL * The militants of CORA have gathered a declaration by the deputies Adelaide Aglietta, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Carlo Ripa di Meana, Claudia Roth, Gianni Tamino, and Nel Van Dijk (Greens); Gianfranco dell'Alba, Olivier DuPuis e Pierre Pradier

(Radical Party); Luciana Castellina and Luciano Pettinari (United European Left); Ernesto Caccavale (Unity for Europe), Rinaldo Bontempi (European Socialists) which affirms, among other things, "we deeply congratulate the Community Council of Turin for having so courageously expressed itself in favor of a reform of the currently repressive drug laws, proposing instead the research of an adequate way for the legalization of derivatives of cannabis and the controlled distribution of heroin. (...) we deplore the fact that analogous measures, already having been implemented with success in other European cities, are the target of such controversy (...) We hope that many other cities, both Italian and European, will unite in the search for new alternatives (...) as European Parliamentarians, we are devoted to assuring that the European Union will no longer be used as an alibi for the normalization of prohibitionism, but that it become instead the seat of a democratic debate on the value of different experiences t

hat are national, as well as regional and local. The wall of hypocritical prohibitionist ideology shows significant signs of weakness and decay. From Turin to Brussels, we will multiply our efforts to knock it down.

*** ITALY, LOCAL INSTITUTIONS, TURIN PROPOSAL * The militants of CORA have already secured the presentation of the Order of the Day approved by the city of Turin in the following institutions: the city and province of GENOA, the cities of ROMA, ANCONA, PERUGIA, PALERMO, AREZZO, CAMPOBASSO, PISA, TREVISO, BOLOGNA, VERONA, TARANTO, FIRENZE, PISTOIA, and GREVE IN CHIANTI. The mobilization continues.

NEWS FROM THE WORLD

COLOMBIA * Opinion of Antonio Caballero on the coca plant. It is the only agricultural product which guarantees the survival of the farmer: it has a stable market and an efficient web of distribution and profit. (CAMBIO16, 28/08)

USA * Drug use increased by 78% in between the years 1992-1995, in particular among young people between thirteen and nineteen years of age, where it increased from 5.2% to 10.4%. According to editorialist Antonio Caballero, the consumption of drugs in the United states is the fruit of their very prohibition (CAMBIO16, 02/09; LE MONDE, 04/09; L'ESPRESSO 05/09).

USA * The Cannabis Buyer's Club of San Francisco, which was tolerated for five years, has now been closed by police. Now the 11,000 members, who with a medical receipt could purchase marijuana to contrast the symptoms of grave illness, alive their pain, and recover their appetite, have to choose between suffering and the risks of street dealers. The order to close the club was given by the Supreme Court. The head of the police department made it known that he will do nothing so that it will be respected. The mayor of the city announced that he could declare a state of emergency, therefore renewing the sale of the drug for medical usage. (L'ESPRESSO, 05/09)

COLOMBIA * Helmer "Pacho" Herrera, the last of the seven leaders and the number three man in the hierarchy of the Cali drug cartel, has surrendered himself sixteen months of hiding. It is suspected that he was in charge of money laundering and trafficking operations, as well as being charged with several homicides. Despite the fact that the capture is considered the end of the Cali drug cartel, the production of cocaine and heroin in Colombia has increased, and the leaders of the cartels are immediately replaced by lesser known traffickers. (EL PAIS, FINANCIAL TIMES, NEUE ZUERCHER ZEITUNG, SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG 03/09, FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE 03-04/09)

PERU' * Demetrio Chavez Penaherrera, known as "El Vaticano," was a major drug dealer in the early 1990's and is now a police collaborator. He recently testified that in 1991-1992 he paid $50,000 per month to a high-level agency official so that planes loaded with shipments of drugs for Colombia would be ignored. Peru' is the provider of sixty percent of the world's cocaine supply. The United Nations has elaborated three pilot projects for the conversion of crops, but their application depends on the volunteering of Peruvian farmers. (FINANCIAL TIMES 03/08, THE ECONOMIST 06/09)

HOLLAND * In Delfzijl, a community of 25,000 inhabitants in the north of Holland, the three coffee shops that sold cannabis derivatives (as tolerated by Dutch law at the amount of five grams per person per day) will be closed and replaced by a single shop which will be run directly by the twon's mayor, Edouard Haaksman, a right-leaning liberal who will monopolize the market. "Paradox" will be the name of the community administration's property, and it is intended "to reduce the notoriety of the phenomenon and fight against the unsupervised growth of coffee shops." And who are the suppliers? " I don't know where the drugs come from, and I don't want to know," says the mayor, adding that "the fact remains that minors under eighteen years of age will not be able to purchase our products, as long as they are unaccompanied by their parents." (LIBERATION 03/09)

GERMANIA * Can heroin addiction be defeated with heroin? The administrative tribunal of Berlin issued a sentence for a program in which heroin in controlled amounts would be "in admissible and in line with principles, as long as it is in accordance with scientific study that has social value." The federal institute of pharmacies has up to now negated the authorization of experiments of experiments of this kind. (DIE ZIET, 30/08)

COLOMBIA * Eleven people lost their lives in new struggles between Colombian police and coca growers. The authorities of the province of Caqueta reported that thousands of farmers poured into the capital of Florencia to protest the anti-drug policy of the government. (SEUDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, 31/08)

HOLLAND * Following foreign criticism, in particular from France, the Dutch government has decided to institute a particular unit of police composed of customs police, operatives from the investigative service, and local police that will wage war against Ecstasy. The assignment: investigate Ecstasy laboratories, examine the quality of the pills, and coordinate actions with French, German, and British authorities. The government is also preparing a campaign directed at informing young people on the risks of Ecstasy. (FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG 02/09)

USA * New research in America has confirmed that a structure in the brain the size of a walnut, defined as the "satiate system," is the residence of the motor of dependence. The research has created a universal model of what happens when a drug is taken, whether it be heroin, alcohol, or tobacco. (DER SPIEGEL, 02/09)

BOLIVIA * On the eve of the summit of the "Rio Group," approximately 500 farmers participated in a protest march on Cochabamba, the seat of the summit in Bolivia. Their leader, Evo Morales, declared that they were ready to respond in case of police reprisals. The protest was directed at the drug policy of the Bolivian government, which is trying to replace them with pastures and fruit crops. (FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG, 04/09)

COLOMBIA * The institutional crisis in Colombia is increasingly difficult. The vice president of the republic, Humberto de la Calle, has resigned because of irreconcilable differences with president Ernesto Samper. Officially, the cause is their divergence in the issue of the war against drug traffickers and communists guerillas, but it seems that it is also due to the consequence of accusations made at Samper for having utilized drug money to finance the electoral campaign of 1994. De la Calla had accused the Liberal party, of whom Samper is the leader, of having used the drug money. (LE FIGARO 04/09, FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE, HERALD TRIBUNE, LA REPUBBLICA 11/09)

USA * A national survey reveals that 65% of parents of adolescent children, who themselves consumed marijuana regularly in the past, believe their children will repeat the experience; between parents who never used the drug, this percentage falls to 29%. For the experts, the data is explained by the fact that twenty years ago the marijuana that circulated was less potent than that available at present, thus causing parents to underestimate the present risk. (HERALD TRIBUNE 10/09)

USA * The war on drugs is one of the fundamental points of the presidential campaign by both candidates Clinton and Dole. Dole accuses the President of having tolerated a drug-friendly youth culture, and Clinton has responded by citing statistics that cite the decrease in crime during his administration. But Dole's campaign has probably found the most effective point in numerous, recent studies that drug use among adolescents, especially of marijuana, has doubled since 1992, the year of Clinton's election. (HERALD TRIBUNE 05/09)

FRANCE * The capture of a large quantity of drugs (1.35 kilograms) arriving from Colombia: an operation which the customs agents of Toulouse are praised for having executed. At the first court hearing celebrated recently, it became known that the customs agents fabricated the event, so much so that the persons indicted were released.

This, however, does not interest the judicial authorities, who have to pursue the crime of the traffic of narcotics regardless, despite the fact that during the appellation process the defendants, who were released, may not be present. Why was this operation executed? No one will say. (IL SOLE 24 ORE, 05/09)

HOLLAND * The Minister of Health, Elst Borst, has proceeded with a request made by the council on public health until the practice already in place in approximately 50 pharmacies and health centers around the nation becomes official practice: the prescription and administration of marijuana for people sick with cancer and AIDS. (FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG, LIBERATION, 05/09)

LATIN AMERICA * The summit of Latin American heads of state, reunited under the denomination of the Rio Group at Cochabamba in Bolivia, concluded with a declaration without precedent. A communal condemnation of U.S. sanctions against Cuba was taken; another, desired strongly by Mexico and Colombia, regarded drugs.

An appeal is launched to the international community for "the intensification of dialogue and the cooperation of efforts in the war against consumption, production, traffic, and distribution of drugs and its related crimes." A commission of the Rio Group has been created to prepare a proposal and resolution in light of the extraordinary session the United Nations will dedicate to the drug problem in 1998. (SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, 05/09 LE MONDE, 06/09)

SWITZERLAND * The Justice of Geneva, in four years of investigations, succeeded in tracing 25 million dollars of Colombian drug money deposited in Swiss bank accounts. The results of these inquests are now under the scrutiny of the State Bar in Geneva. The boss who is implicated most thoroughly in these findings is Guillermo Ortiz, who, according to the CIA, had opened an account in Geneva in 1992. (NEUE ZUERCHER ZEITUNG, 06/09)

SALVADOR * Juan Jose Domenech, founder and leader of the Republican Nationalist Alliance and possible candidate for the 1999 presidency, has resigned in light of his impending trial on drug trafficking charges. domenech says he is the victim of an international conspiracy. (EL PAIS, 09/09

FRANCE * In six months France has passed from 3,00 patients on methadone treatment to over 20,000 today. they are treated with different products, among them about 15,00 patients treated with Subutex, a substance available in the pharmacies since February. A testimony: "I need it to feel good, a dose in the morning and a dose at night. Things can change; when i was on vacation I only took one every night, and it is possible that I could decrease the dosage further, a little at a time," says Jeanne, 52 years old. (LIBERATION, 09/09)

COLOMBIA * After a dispute that lasted forty days, and compelled by a strong internal political pressure, the Colombian government decided to meet with coca growers. In a meeting between the minister of internal affairs and the representatives of almost 60,000 farmers, it was agreed to destroy crops in exchange of a compensation: for every hectare of crop land the government destroys the equivalent of 3.450 German marks will be awarded in an effort to encourage the cultivation of legal crops. (SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, 14/09)

COLOMBIA * Attorneys continue their investigation into the components of the Columbian government responsible for the financing of the last elections with drug money. The problem is that the drug problem is vast and incorporates vast segments of the population. The economic aspect is embedded in agriculture, the budget, the banks, businesses, even humanitarian organizations that are used for the laundering of drug money. Besides this spider web of diffuse interests, which renders the discovery of who is the killer and who is the victim difficult, there is the criminal aspect as well: in Colombia, one person is murdered every twenty five minutes, and one person disappears every half hour. (FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG, 17/09)

USA * Bill Clinton has ordered an official investigation of the CIA, who apparently sold large quantities of cocaine in California in order to obtain funds to finance Nicaraguan "Contras." African American representatives in Congress accuse the secret service of causing the escalation of drugs and violence in the poor districts of Los Angeles over the last ten years. (EL PAIS, 17/09; LE MONDE, 18/09)

COLOMBIA * "News from a Kidnapping" the latest book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has been published. It deals with the detailed reconstruction of events relating to the kidnapping of nine journalists effected by drug traffickers between August of 1990 and July of 1991. The kidnappings were executed in order to blackmail the government and avoid extradition to the USA. It is also a didactic book; whoever does not know what drug trafficking is, or about narco-terrorism and the events that took lace in Colombia in those months will surely be an expert on the subject by the time they reach page thirty, without ever realizing that they are reading history. (LA REPUBBLICA 12/09, PANORAMA 19/09)

MESSICO * Ernesto Ibarra Santes, chief of the federal police in Baja, California, is the sixth police chief killed by drug traffickers since the beginning of this year. In the crime, which was committed by several assassins that shot at the taxi in which sates was riding from a car, two agents also died. The police chief had openly declared war against the cocaine cartels. In the taxi a bag with $50,000 was found, along with weapons, the provenance of which was unexplained by police. (NEUE ZUERCHER BEITUNG 16/09, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE 17/09)

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Our goal is to organize a nonviolent antiprohibitionist and political movement starting with Europe. It is an ambitious goal, above our actual financial capabilities. Our "Only" financial resources come from subscriptions or contributions that citizens pay individually to CORA: not one cent of our budget comes from other organizations or institutions. This financial weakness is our strength and our political freedom. This allows us to act on what we consider the most urgent and correct. With a view to the VIIth CORA Congress, which will be held in Brussels in November, we want to establish a network of contacts and personal disposals to change the existing laws on drugs. In consequence we ask you to fill out and return this following form by mail or by fax or by sending us the answers by e-mail.

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