First Secretary of the Radical Party, member of the Italian Parliament.

ABSTRACT: The battle of the Radical Party against the prohibitionism on drugs.

("THE COST OF PROHIBITION ON DRUGS", Papers of the International

Anti-prohibitionism Forum, Brussels 28th september - 1st october 1988; Ed. Radical Party)

Ladies and Gentlemen, participants of the International Anti-Prohibitionist Meeting, please allow me to greet you on behalf of the Radical Party, which in collaboration with CO.R.A (Radical Anti-Prohibitionist Co-ordination), has promoted this meeting. This could well be the first time ever, at such a high scientific level of inter-disciplinary research, that an attempt has been made to utilise man's conscience and will to investigate the possible ways of defeating, or at least bringing within reasonable limits, a planet-wide pathology which we see as a growing threat to life, freedom, and the development of the potential of an ever-increasing number of people and regions of the world.

Among the items on the agenda for discussion at this meeting are the most serious direct effects of the distribution of certain drugs, the power of organised international crime, and the ferocity of the delinquency which has invaded both great cities and small towns. And we are well aware that this crime, this violence, is not the consequence of any particular drug itself, but of the social and legislative solutions offered to solve the problem of drugs.

I come from Italy, a country which was recently horrified-although not surprised, since such crimes have by now become part of everyday life in certain areas - by the murder of a senior magistrate of the Court of Palermo and his son by Mafia hitmen, on the highway connecting their home town Caltanissetta with Palermo. A few short hours later, the Mafia executed a man who was much loved by the alternative Left, a leader in the 1968 protest movement, who after some years spent in India, had returned to Italy, and founded a community in Sicily welcoming society's outcasts, ex-terrorists and drug addicts, a libertarian community where no one was expected to conform to standardised behaviour patterns and where no one was asked to give up heroin. However, a battle was being fought there, with means that included a small television transmitting station, against the blackmail exerted by the drug Mafia throughout the entire zone, to the point where it controlled - even dictated - the principal political and econom

ic activities.

A magistrate, a member of the establishment, as well as an individual who had always revolted against the establishment were thus eliminated within the space of a few hours. The Mafia, or the various organisations bearing the name "mafia", obviously has no particular political programme to promote. However, I strongly believe that the Mafia - Sicilian or otherwise - does defend one political programme, supporting it, perhaps even financing it. And that programme is the legal repression of drug trafficking; Prohibition. With the repeal of drug prohibition, the wealth - and thus the power - of criminal organisations would inevitably diminish to the extent that its confrontation with the forces of order could be turned around to favour the latter.

The Radical Party has a long history of involvement with drug policy. In the early 1960s, we took the first initiatives to protest against the imprisonment of young people accused of smoking hashish or marijuana. In 1975, our colleague Marco Pannella was arrested for smoking a joint in front of police authorities, in an act of public defiance of the law. In the years to come, others would follow his example.

Thanks to these actions of civil disobedience, the Italian Parliament approved a law which at least does not punish personal drug consumption, although it does unfortunately maintain a general system of criminal law which produces - as we predicted it would as much as twenty, and again ten, years ago - the growth of social phenomena in our country which has long passed the danger point. It was just a few years ago that our colleague Luigi Del Gatto, who is today President of CO.R.A., was arrested, found guilty, acquitted, and then found guilty again but with a suspended sentence, for the moral consequences of his actions - he had administered morphine-based therapy in the treatment of some of his drug-addict patients.

In recent years, and in particular measure since 1984, Marco Pannella has repeatedly advanced the anti-prohibitionist view in his political and journalistic statements, televised debates and parliamentary bills - including the European Parliament - denouncing the world-wide scourge that has developed around drug smuggling, thanks to a foolish policy which is incapable of correcting its own errors. This was the founding principle some months ago of CO.R.A. (Radical Anti-Prohibitionist Co-ordination).

Therefore, including the theme of repealing drug prohibition in the list of essential political commitments of the new Radical Party, which saw the light of day at the Congress in Bologna last January, would seem only natural. That Congress ratified the transformation of the Italian Radical Party into a trans-national party, a move which has thankfully enabled us to take our distance from the pointless rehashing of national models which we do not see as being either useful or effective in today's world, in light of the globalisation of most essential choices.

The opposing of the international policy of a war on drugs, its failure and the deterioration it causes in the system of liberal democratic guarantees and the rule of law, as well as the extensive violence it generates, for a party displaying the banner of non-violence cannot fail to be crucial.

Time will be needed - but hopefully not too much time - before international reform of drug policy will become possible.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I thank you once again for your presence here in Brussels, and express the hope that you will continue with your good work.