ANTIPROHIBITIONIST OF THE ENTIRE WORLD ....
Year 4 #20, July 16 1998
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Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies
Edited by the CORA - Radical Antiprohibitionist Coordination, federated to
- TRP-Transnational Radical Party (NGO, consultive status, I)
- The Global Coalition for Alternatives to the Drug War
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director: Vincenzo Donvito
All rights reserved
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http://www.agora.stm.it/coranet
mailto:cora.news@agora.it
ITALY / SERT
The director of the SERT, the public service that assists drug addicts, in Genova has accused the CORA of instrumentally using the drug question for electoral reasons. Roberto Spagnoli answers that the CORA does not arbitrarily attack the SERTs , but simply denounces the fact that citizens with drug addiction can not use the public service 24 hour a day as the law prescribes.
ITALY / REPORT OF THE MINISTRY OF SOCIAL SOLIDARITY
Roberto Spagnoli, from the direction of the CORA, says that the report on drugs has been released 5 months late in relation to the law and that it contains neither encouraging results or an awareness of the failure of present politics on drugs. This failure lies in the relation between laws that encourage criminal acts and public services that continue to work in a situation of illegality, and not in the need of enforcing repression, which only breeds social instability. The situation of urgency does not regard new drugs, as the Ministry says, but the old policies.
ITALY / NUMBER OF DEATHS AND OF DRUG ADDICTS
"Some like to play with numbers", says Giulio Manfredi of the direction of the CORA. The Government has announced the decrease of deaths for overdose in 1997 (only 115), but overlooks the general growth of the phenomenon during the past years. Arlacchi says that the Italian heroin addicts are 160.000; the Government says those contacted by public services are 130.000, or one third of the total ones. Who is lying?
ITALY / SERT
The Public Prosecutor of Genova has asked to archive the denunciation of the CORA on the SERT. He says that "specific and identifiable facts are missing" . But if a drug addict asking for assistance from a public service that is not open as law prescribes is not a fact , then what is it?
000133 10/07/98
E.U. / GB
CRIME
THE TIMES
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Crime's illegal business is worth 11,1 billion pounds, and has incremented by 1,5 % since last year. 8,6 billion puonds of this are represented by the illegal drug market.
000139 13/07/98
E.U. / ITALY
DRUG ADDICTION
LA REPUBBLICA
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After the recent allarmism on the diffusion of Ecstasy, Umberto Galimberti is trying to show how dangerous this substance, which is misleadingly considered a 'soft'drug, can be. He puts into evidence how young people, who are anonymous and generally not considered during the daytime, are forced to live during the summer night hours.
000135 10/07/98
ASIA / UZBEKISTAN / SAMARCANDA
DRUG MAFIA
CORRIERE DELLA SERA
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Samarcand has become a new world crossway for drug traffic. The Iranian antidrug 'Maginot' line, 100 kilometers long, is pushing the drug traffickers to beat new roads.
000136 12/07/98
E.U. / HOLLAND
DRUG MAFIA
IL GIORNALE 12/07 / SUEDDEUTSCHE Z. 13/07
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An 'antinarcos' plane has been found full of drugs. The plane had been used by two Dutch Marine officers, who have been arrested for having imported 125 kilos of cocaine from the Antilles.
000137 13/07/98
E.U. / GERMANY
DRUG MAFIA
SUEDDEUTSCHE Z.
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In a report on crime in 1997 the first position is held by crimes regarding drugs, with the dominating position of the Turkish drug dealers.
000141 15/07/98
E.U. / ITALY
DRUG MAFIA
LA STAMPA
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Investigations centered in Naples that have brought to the arrest of 78 people have also evidenced that the drug traffic from Albania is managed by the wives of imprisoned mafia bosses. Pierluigi Vigna, the national anti drug Public Prosecutor, says that the female component of organized crime is not taken enough into comnsideration.
000134 09/07/98
E.U. / ITALY
INSTITUTIONS
CORRIERE DELLA SERA / IL GIORNALE / HERALD TRIBUNE, IL MESSAGGERO
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A report by the Ministry of Social Solidarity points out the following facts: Ecstasy consumption is going up among the very young; there are less drug addicts and more habitual consumers; less dead and more who use the public SERT services for rehabilitation; and more drug consuming in the army: one fifht of the soldiers start using drugs in the barracks, although the Ministry of defence denies this.
000138 12/07/98
AMERICA. / USA
PREVENTION
LE MONDE
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'Talk about it with your children before someone else does'. This is the slogan of Clinton's new anti drug campaign, which is also supported by the Republicans. The project will costs 2 billion $ over the next two years, and is directed to young people aging from 9 to 18.
000140 08/07/98
E.U. / FRANCE
WAR ON DRUGS
L'EVENEMENT DU JEUDI
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On the decisions of the UN, which have the support of President Chirac, Daniel Cohn Bendit says: 'These are the usual old tactics of putting under silence the methods of harm reduction. And what about the Socialists? Will they go along with the right wing forces also on this theme?'
000142 13/07/98
E.U.
WAR ON DRUGS
DIE PRESSE
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The anti drug 'tzar', Barry Mc Caffrey is in Europe to 'learn and listen'. His firts stop will be Sweden, then Vienna to meet Arlacchi, next will be Holland, and then Lisbon for a meeting with his 17 European colleagues.
ITALY - Sixteen thousand Marijuana plants have been found by chance by the Carabinieri in the region of Calabria. Two people have been arrested and the cultivation has been burnt.
ITALY - The former secretary of an Italian minister seems to have stolen over 1 billion Lire out of the public money that was intended to build a center for rehabilitating drug addicts. The center, in fact, was never built.
ITALY - The "Ricomincio da due" campaign of the Drug Forum has ended with 30.000 signatures in favor of a law to legalize cannabis. After over 200 debates during the past year, preparations for the Autumn campaign have started.
USA - The city of Oakland, in California, has legalized the possess of 700 grams of Marijuana for therapeutic use.
