Following is the preamble of the report adopted by the European Parliament committee of inquiry, together with significant extracts of the recommendations advanced at the end of that report.

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PREAMBLE

The power of the criminal organizations which control the drugs traffic is growinq at an alarming rate. It is having increasingly serious effects on society and on the political institutions of the Member States. It is undermining the foundations of the legitimate economy and threatening the stability of the States of the Community. The financial gains to be made from drugs trafficking enables the criminal organizations involved to contaminate and corrupt the structures of the State at all levels.

The extremely high cost of drugs on the market is one of the causes of deliquency, insecurity, unrest and social and racial discrimination. The health of users of illegal drugs suffers not only from the effects of the substances themselves but also because of the climate of illegality surrounding the market.

In certain countries, the spread of organized crime, its financial power, its ability to infiltrate the institutions and to influence the electoral consensus gives it a power to condition and blackmail which interferes with politial decisions. On numerous occasions, as the BCCI scandal shows, there has been collusion between criminal groups and the secret services and other structures of the State in subversive activities or money laundering, secret funding and the use of the same financial institutions. All this can weaken the political determination to attack the main centres of the international drug traffic.

In response to this situation, the EP is making a series of recommendations aimed at improving the effectiveness of control measures, in accordance with the 1988 Vienna Convention. These recommendations are based on the following considerations.

The police forces, customs authorities and the judicial system must concerntrate their activities primarily on the repression of drugs trafficking and the crime of laundering, while at the same time ensuring respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual.

The various Community, national and regional services and authorities responsible for repression must be subject to parliamentary control . The policies carried out to date have not achieved their objective, namely to stop, or at least reduce the penetration of drugs into the EC. It is estimated that repression has so far brought about a reduction of between 5 and 15% in the drugs traffic and the capital it generates. It is therefore necessary to assess whether assuming it were possible a determined increase in the effectiveness of repression could deal a significant, or even fatal, blow to the traffic or whether other strategies should not be considered.

The Committee therefore calls for a cost/benefit analysis of the present policy on drugs based on the following indicators: living conditions of illegal drug users, the spread of AIDS and the overdose risk among drug addicts, the influence of drugs trafficking and the infiltration of crime into the political system and the public service, the number and type of violent crimes in the cities; the percentage of prosecutions for crimes linked to drugs in terms of the total volume of judicial proceedings and the prison / population. The formulation of new policies must be considered.

The following recommendations formulated by the Committee of Enquiry reflect issues directly related to its mandate, namely, to investigate the spread of organized crime linked to drugs trafficking in the Member States of the European Community and its effects on democracy.

It is the considered view of the Committee that apart from the phenomenon of drugs trafficking alone, it is also necessary to investigate the consequences of the fight on drugs, especially this fight's effects on democracy and its effects on the safety and liberty of the citizens, (...);

Drug addiction and drug misuse should primarily be treated as a subject of health and welfare and not as one of police and justice. Possession of illicit drugs in small quantities for personal use should not be considered as a criminal offence. Drug law should make a distinction between the consumer and the criminal world and avoid treating drug addicts as delinquents, thus jeopardizing any chance of social integration. Assistance to drug addicts should no longer be subject to the risk of prosecution under criminal law (...);

A drug addiction fighting against addiction exclusively with the criminal law and the compulsion to abstinence and offering governmental and public aid under the assumption of drug abstinence only has failed (...);

In this context, ensuring free access to treatment, frr syringes, and the prescription of drugs (temalgesic, methadone) by registered clinics should be provided for by Member States (...);

Anti drugs efforts must concentrate not on the users and the bottom of the trafficking hierarchy, but on organized international trafficking and trafficking at the highest levels.

There is a need to develop a pragmatic approach to reducing the risks associated with the use and abuse of drugs (harm reduction) by reimbursing the costs of drug addicts' health and social care. The aim is to ensure and organize the availability of unadulterated drugs at specific dosages, in order to reduce deaths and health problems (especially infection by the HIV virus) and lower the resultant crime rates. (...)

Since laundering allows drugs traffickers to inject the vast profits arising from the illegal nature of the drugs trade into the legitimate economy, it is necessary not only to control economic and financial channels but also to study ways of preventing the accumulation of such profits by regulating the trade in substances which are now prohibited.(...)