Strasburg-Brussels, January 12, 1998

Dear Colleague,

During its January session, the European Parliament will take a vote on the report of Madame Hedy d'Ancona. It is a very important document, because, thanks to it, our Parliament will finally address the "drug question". The text has already been voted by the majority of the members (27 against 16) of the Committee on Civil Liberties.

This report is grounded on a pragmatic approach to the drug question and proposes to take into account the successes of the decriminalizing experiments of the consumption of soft drugs, as well as the projects of controlled distribution of hard drugs under medical prescription.

As it has been underlined during various public meetings all over Europe, an increasing part of the European people perceives the necessity to face the drug question in a new way. Politicians, specialists, magistrates and police officers are calling for a change in policies on drugs. At their last meeting, the Ministers of Justice and Health of the EU have declared that addicts must no longer be considered criminals, but rather ill people in need of appropriate treatment and not of repression.

In such a context, the adoption of the d'Ancona Report, even if still a quite moderate document, could be an important first step for the elaboration of a new effective European policy on the social and sanitary condition of drug-addicts, against the destabilization power of this huge black market in the hands of narco-mafias.

For all these reasons we invite you to support the document among your fellow group members, and, eventually, to vote for it in plenary.

Yours truly,

Helena Vaz da Silva Olivier Dupuis Claudia Roth

(EPP) (ERA) (Greens)

Rinaldo Bontempi Martin Schulz Panayotis Lambrias

(PES) (PES) (EPP)

Charles Goerens Gianfranco Dell'Alba Ernesto Caccavale

(ELDR) (ERA) (UFE)