ABSTRACT: The "plague" of drugs is not a plague in terms of the number of victims it claims, if compared to other social phenomena of our age. Public opinion perceives its social danger in relation to the criminal phenomena which are associated to the drug traffic. But the latter, according to the author, are the fruit of prohibition on drugs, which sustains the greatest and most powerful criminal multi-national ever known in the world. The benefits of a legalization policy of the drug market.

(Notizie radicali n. 200 of 31 August 1987)

The so-called plague "of drugs" in itself claims, in terms of direct deaths, irrelevant figures as compared to a score of other social phenomena of our epoch.

And yet, and there are good reasons for this, it is pointed out as being the major scourge of the world, after the scourge of wars and extermination due to hunger. This is because, in fact, the so-called "drugs" plague is the plague of crime, of successful crime, thanks to prohibition, of which drugs are the pretext and the occasion. Refusing to understand, refusing to acknowledge this evidence may lead, in a short lapse of time, the world ruled by political democracy and at least in theory by the juridical civilization of the "habeas corpus" or of the state based on law, to distortions which can result extremely serious in the long run for this form of civilization. More and more, to fight micro-criminality, which also becomes "political", strategically internal, for example, to the illicit traffic of weapons in the whole of the world, anti-guarantistic, efficiency-oriented and often even "military" or militarized illusions are being spread. This "dirty war", this new "Vietnam", is already spreading in Lati

n America, and President Reagan's policy is achieving those negative and sad results foreseen and denounced by Milton Friedman, that is, effects of uncontrolled ideology, anti-liberalism, statalism, of economic and institutional disaster. The "Rognoni-La Torre" laws, after fifty years, are turning, on a cultural and political level, into a new Italian export of the same nature (not successful, we hope) of the past; the traditional principle of the "habeas corpus", which corresponds to the Anglo-saxon juridical civilization itself, is being questioned. Any space for "privacy" is being destroyed, turning any act of the law into an act of the police, depriving of all rights any citizen who, perhaps by chance, or a coincidence of names, has anything to do with "drugs", giving the state - out of emergency reasons - the monstrous sovereignty, violence and impotence of a new Leviathan.

A message of alarm must be sent, a message of clarity: these outcries are not enough, because each time they are turned into a cries of tragical "silence", thanks to the subculture of the leadership, of politics, and of the mass-medias, which label anti-prohibitionism as an "illiterate culture of return", as a totem, each time it is confronted with the "emergency" of life and of its problems: terrorism, Aids, drugs, crime.

In actual fact, we are confronted with the true, century-long conflict: that between the Jacobin--authoritarian-efficiency oriented illusion and the democratic-liberal proposal. The "war against drugs" is but a new, terrible occasion. It is therefore clear that we are dealing with a "war against crime" and the criminal activity which is unanimously indicated as drawing its resources from the drug traffic, the weapons traffic and the traffic of criminogenic laws. We do not in the least believe in the correctness of the pattern according to which "prohibitionists" are concerned with basing on the law the battle against a certain plague, and "anti-prohibitionists" are resigned to relying on the absence of laws and controls, that is, the law of the jungle, to overcome the "status quo" (which is the product of 70 years of "prohibition" and not of "anti-prohibitionism").

As a matter of fact those supporting and enacting the prohibitionist authoritarian ideology obtain the result of making "drugs" totally "free", except for that irrelevant quantity seized and immediately plentifully replaced with different techniques (not least of all that of further sophistications of the "remaining" merchandise in order to immediately fulfil the decrease of supply). Whereas "free drugs", in the sense in which alcohol, psychotropic drugs and tobacco are "free", would be totally controlled, in its various stages, from cultivation, manufacturing, transport, sale and consumption. "Free drugs" would mean once again subjecting to legal control, to the official market, to social and cultural control, to the concrete actions of the government for this or that matter, by means of stimuli and deterrents, therapies and limitations similar to those - we repeat it once again - alcohol, psychotropic substances, tobacco, these "forbidden drugs" as well, which are, in actual fact, free and imposed by the p

rohibitionist regime.

The analogy is all the more effective if to these considerations we add: just as in the case of divorce and abortion; there too we found ourselves confronted with the forecasts of an apocalypse. All men - or many, many more - would have immediately chosen that "young flesh" of the twenty year olds, instead of their mature forty or fifty year old wives; all girls, all women would have copulated freely and unhindered, now that "unlimited" abortion was offered them.

But it is not by chance that our enemies tend on the one hand to talk always about "drugs", and on the other hand of "drug-addicts".

"Drug-addicts". They are, reportedly, hundreds of thousands in Italy. What is it that makes them different from alcoholics, and victims of psychotropic drugs? Basically, one, terrifying feature: "drug-addicts" are forced to commit everyday crimes, to commit violence against other hundreds of thousands of people (almost every day or every two or three days), forced to be soldiers-mercenaries for the accumulation of huge profits, of immense wealth for the large scale and small scale crime, victorious and spreading all over the world. This "additional" feature of the drug-addict is the "peculiar" basis of prohibitionist law. Without this law, and starting from now, the "drug-addict" would turn into what he presently is, for himself and for society, that is, an alcoholic or a victim of psychotropic drugs. Crime. Without this law, an army - which is today the most terrible and victorious, in the world and in Italy - would be immediately dismissed. Of course, crime would immediately have to "convert" itself into

other activities. The asphyxia which would be produced on the whole organization, on the whole of its apparatus, would, of course, bring about, for a certain period, a desperate and urgent activity of thefts, blackmail, kidnapping. But this would occur in a context in which hundreds of thousands, millions even, of episodes of violence caused by the prohibitionist regime, committed by "drug-addicts", would cease, delivering the police and the judicial (according to Friedman, 80% or their activities are blocked by the criminal acts of "drug-addicts"), and the society at large, from the burden of chaos in which they presently struggle, enabling them to concentrate on the war against crime, which would suddenly be isolated in society. It is easy to foresee which would be the guide-lines of the new crime; more concentrated on the tertiary, but gradually more "sophisticated", more focused on "spaces" determined by the spreading of informatics, or on pseudo political "terrorism". This is what is already happening

alongside the drug market, in the perspective and thanks to the necessity of converting the huge profits which are made from it.

Naturally, we are not saying that the abolition of "prohibition" would solve the evils of the world. But it would leave crime with a tremendous defeat, and law and society the powers following a victory which is directly proportional to that defeat.

The "suicide of a generation". I've already written it: this is the fear, the reason and the aim of every desperate or culturally (in its best meaning, cultural, existential) authoritarian, Jacobin, fascist position. And, each time, the forecast of an apocalypse, every time one speaks about freedom or responsibility, about the human being being tragically inhabited both by good and by evil, and as incapable of responsibility, destined to evil.

On the contrary we must make an attempt to understand the historical, social, cultural realities as they are in a certain period, meditate on the precedents, on experiences and experience, on the known mechanisms, on the impact of laws, those that exist and those to be enforced.

What happened to alcoholics after prohibition, and what will happen to today's alcoholics? Are they more or less? Will they increase? Are they increasing? And if they are, for what reason?

The answers are more or less known. I will just recall that alcoholics, while prohibition was in force, drank sophisticated alcohol, and at times the effect was immediate death; that the conditions of the assumption, the impossibility of being "openly" cured, of undertaking any disintoxication therapy, made alcohol a drug with no relation to today's drugs, of which, however, the devastating effects, both on society and on the individual, are all too known.

Alcohol was, in many ways, a drug more similar, in its effects, to the "drugs" of today, than to alcohol as such.

a) We can therefore reasonably foresee that, as regards tens of millions of present drug-addicts, the entry in the market of controlled "drugs", the different conditions of assumption, the psychological relief due to the fact of coming out of the spiral of crime and violence, would correspond to a lower rate of criminality, of mortality and of desperation.

As with alcohol, as with psychotropic substances, the increased "time" before the catastrophe is the vehicle or the possibility of salvation, of healing. (But, those who scream against anti-prohibitionism in the name of "drug-addicts", of the suicide of a generation, what are these people doing to give power to those who would mobilize against these plagues the solidarity of society and their own solidarity, and who would pass laws contrary to the promotion - which is presently being done - of the consumption of alcohol and of psychotropic substances? It would be necessary to take it, as - finally - for alcoholics and victims of psychotropic substances. But it could be there, and today isn't.

b) We can also expect that the decreased or non-existant pressure to provoke demand, the disincentivation of any reason for proselytizing (if not within the limits - which should be restricted and which the League commits to restricting - in which this occurs even now - and should not occur - for advertisements of liquors and alcoholic beverages, psychotropic drugs and tobacco).

"Prohibitionists", in their ocean of contradictions caused by the fear they have or by means of which they want to provoke certain political and civil choices, do not cease denouncing those suspicious characters lurking around schools and even kindergartens, waiting for teenagers and children to capture them and introduce them to drugs. Hundreds of thousands of people in Italy, tens of millions throughout the world, will no longer be forced to proselytize, to earn their amount of non-sufference and death.

We can therefore reasonably foresee that the urge that has been the origin, in these last decades, of the spreading of this plague, would suddenly be missing.

c) We have already mentioned the completely different nature of the impact of a "product" assumed in a clandestine regime and the impact of a product assumed in an official and regulated regime. I will only mention the scientific work (of Giancarlo Arnao in Italy, for example) proving how the specific characteristics of pure, non-sophisticated cocaine and heroin, assumed in normal conditions, both from a psychological and from a hygienic point of view, make them a basically different "product". As usual, we are confronted with the phenomena of a society based on social discrimination. It is commonly believed that the great protagonists of our epoch are secretly drug users. It has always been this way. These are, often, the physical reflection of health and fitness. Not for this, of course, we would invite people to imitate them. We will just remark that it is necessary to have a deeper knowledge of the devil's matter, instead of turning it into a modern "sulphur" (European pharmacopoeia has witnessed several

centuries of delay because of this effect).

d) The life and death of a drug-addict, the addict of "forbidden drugs" are characterized more by violence, crime, guilt, despair and cynicism, caused by the entry into the world and into the world of crime, than by the actual effect of the use of drugs. Of course, we agree that drugs are a "poison". The quantity is an essential factor. But this is true also for alcohol and psychotropic substances. Those who invoke "humanity" to antiprohibitionists should have a more genuine pity, that is more knowledge and love and less laxism on the "status quo", as regards the drug-addict.

For this reason we have often lived with them, we have fought, we have been insulted and let ourselves be insulted, we have tried to go toward an improvement, and of course there is the risk of making mistakes, but this also because of decades characterized by prudence and knowledge. In a non-prohibitionist regime therefore, coming out of the tunnel of drugs would be easier, both on a practical level (the non-criminalization and its effects as for abortion, for example), both on a psychic-moral level: it would no longer be the "malaise of living" as a murderer, as a criminal, but living like someone who has simply committed "evil against himself".

This is what experience enables us to state, to foresee for hundreds of millions people, for hundreds of million people in Italy, for their families; for the "drug-addicts", this is to be considered, in the case of an antiprohibitionist "success". It is a considerable thing, we believe.

We still have to deal with the "great fear": how many persons of the new generation will be the "additional" victims of the "drug-plague"?

The only reasonable answer I feel I can give is that, if all went well, at least 5 years of passionate discussions, of work, of dedication, of non-violent battles would be necessary, of diffusions of the knowledge at the level of masses and leadership to reach the final, decisional stage at an ONU international level, at the level of European Community, of North America, of Africa,before passing to an antiprohibitionist regime.

Already this greater knowledge will have been a reasonably greater force of resistance, of commitment, of motivation to the participation of the process of deepening and wisdom both for legislators and for citizens. But it is at that point, looking at the reality of that moment, which will unfortunately be more tragical than the present one, that we can better define what needs to be done. Of course we will need norms, procedures, transition acts from one regime to the other. They will have to be different, naturally, for each social-political area examined. The problems are not and will not be identical in the large urbanized areas of the wealthy world, in the great mega cities that are swelling in all of the third and fourth world, or even in the United States and Spain.

Of course, if we will be living in a world in which life, the right to life and the life of rights, that are the "slogan", the symbol and the hope of us organized Radicals, will be even more weakened and cursed from an anthropological, cultural and political point of view: if extermination due to hunger, misery, war will be increasing, the way they seem to be; if the desire for death, the desperate worship of it, characterize even more that epoch, far and yet very near, many will try to leave: many will use "drugs", others will use violence, war, alcohol, psychotropic drugs, death, suicide or murder.

But let's be serious, we cannot afford to be superficial; what will happen if the prohibitionist regime will be accompanied, will continue to be accompanied by the growth of such a world? We will have even more "drug-addicts", even more murderers, even more bag-snatchers, more soldiers-mercenaries, who will confer a tremendous power to the criminal organizations of which they are the social and economic basis, ideal subjects, as such, of a new multinational power, stronger than the "national states", of the "lords" and "masters" of the past.

"The question is no longer that of knowing if the river is frosty, it is necessary to wade it" quoting Teilhard du Chardin, when he probed the nature of mankind to divine or conceive its destiny and fill himself with faith.

The morality of a politician consists in being able to be a man of government and of law, being capable proposing, fighting, conceiving and underlining that which he believes to be good.

I would like to recall these meditations at a moment in which it appears more probable that the history of the Radical party will be concluded by means of violent death, in spite of the almost miraculous capacity of life and morality it has. The oxygen, the water, the earth necessary for social and democratic life, for non-violent political initiative of our state, have always been abruptly subtracted, since twenty years, in these years, months, days.

Intelligence tells me that without the Radical Party, the transnational, transpartisan Radical Party, its segments of theory of praxis and of accomplished praxis, the Book that was inspired by it, the Law it has respected and fostered in the most desperate corners of our time and in each one of us, this intention, this aim, will not even be known, judged, rejected, accepted. The Italian society of communication is the exact opposite of a society of knowledge. We are dying because of the falsity of those who know they don't know and for whom it is comfortable to mistake victimisms with victims, victims with victimisms. The "best", the "myths", the "dubite frequenter", the "lay", the "clerics-non-betrayers" are against us. Often in the worse ways; they have nothing to object, but...

My comrades, and I personally - presenting this death - are rebelling against ourselves. In the sunken ship, among those who are about to drown, perhaps, there are many who express the ultimate anathema of responsibility and blame, whereas they are brothers of blames, of other people's offences, of the wrong use made of freedom and and of responsibility, accepting the existence of wars and warships, and not accomplishing or organizing objections-statements of conscience.

We of the Party would immediately need, to continue hoping in the creation of the new things that are possible, instead of dying for that which has been accomplished, nothing but a trifle: a couple of thousand new Italian subscribers, right now.

For this battle of liberation from crime and drugs: from extermination due to hunger and from war: from the decline of the lay and Christian, Jewish and "oriental" faith in freedom, and in political democracy and in the "state of law" of society.

But the wading of the river must be made possible, in spite of the swirling flood or the putrefied and lethal pond. We must wade. We will continue in our attempt to wade.

(text edited by Notizie Radicali and not revised by the author).

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