ITALY - Member of the Italian and European Parliaments, founder of the Radical Party. His commitment to the cause of the legalisation of hashish and marijuana dates back to the early 1970s, when he was arrested for publicly smoking marijuana during a press conference in order to demonstrate the absurdity of a law which caused hundreds of young people to be jailed. That action had a positive effect, as shortly afterward a new law was passed abolishing punishment for strictly person use of prohibited substances.

ABSTRACT: Decriminalisation or regulation? The urgent necessity of creating an international anti-prohibitionist league.

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

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

It is by this point evident that when we take leave of each other, it will not be good-bye forever, but simply good-bye until the next time we meet. For a dialogue was begun here, during the course of which we have all become a bit wiser about what the true nature of the situation is and the real limitations involved. Now, we must move on to action, action in terms of laws, in terms of opportunity.

None of us as legislators considers laws to be absolute; there is always room for improvement, and we must have the courage to act in that direction. I believe the opinions and observations which have been presented here are workable and feasible ones: more or less taxation, decriminalisation, legislation, antiprohibition. And if Procurator Apap will permit, the issue now is the urgency of making a semantic choice: if it is to be a battle, then we must choose the words of that battle, with just that touch of judgement and will implicit in any choice of that kind. A war of words is also a serious one.

The word decriminalisation. This is not the first time that we have used it. We used it in other struggles against other forms of prohibition - of abortion, for example, and the epidemic of clandestine, illegal abortions resulting. Obviously, wholesale or indiscriminate decriminalisation in that case would ave, or could have, implied the blanket authorisation of public structures to perform abortions - even in the ninth month, or for any reason.

Simple decriminalisation can imply that. Of course, nothing can prevent any of us from cherishing, in his heart of hearts, the dream of a Solar City where perfection reigns, and where laws are thus superfluous and unnecessary. (But are we quite sure that would be a dream? I personally would be more tempted to consider it more a nightmare.

What we want to do is restore the spirit of the word and the law - law in the Biblical sense, in the evangelic sense, in the juridic sense, so that in the city, the polis, there will be human laws, laws appealing to the sense of individual responsibility, and consequently ensuring the liberty of all.

That is my, as far as I am concerned, the term anti-prohibition is to be preferred to express what this means in the collective imagination of our times. For, the cinema, and then television have made known to a large percentage of the earth's three or four billion inhabitants the epic of the life and adventures of Al Capone, and Chicago - informing them along the way (because we must remember that at that time our emigration was made up of humbler classes) that the Mafia was created also for reasons of self-defence against real threats in a hostile society.

The results are that anti-prohibition in the concern now of all classes in both Europe and America. We are reminded of it in films, and it is important that language reflect the imagination and the collective history of the people.

Thus, we have chosen the word "anti-prohibition", and it is a concept which in my life has always tended to also include an attitude towards the State, the law, and crime. Mrs. Bertrand has pointed out, and affirmed on juridic principle, the illegitimacy of criminal indictment for crimes without victims. I note with considerable intellectual enthusiasm that principle - which I know is ancient - revived and presented here again in all its strength. I say that we wish to be simply individuals who do not believe, as do certain types of anarchists, that the law is always negative and that human nature in the savage state is good. If anything, we belong to another school of thought prescribing to a hope which, although anarchic, is different; where the law of retaliation (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a toot is preferable to the "natural" law of the jungle because, although it is abominable, it is the beginning of written law.

Although I am generally considered to be very left-wing (although exactly what that is supposed to mean I am not entirely sure), I must say that I was still infinitely grateful for the intellectual honesty and simplicity of Milton Friedman when, six or seven years ago, he gave us the phrase, "the dictatorship of the status quo". Although the boys of the "Patriarch" come and reproach us today with drug-related deaths, telling us about children eight or nine years old who peddle drugs and die from them, I can assure you a the situation is very similar to that in Italy when, despite the general and widespread indignation over the epidemic of massive clandestine abortions, and when no one else - perhaps not even the church - had the courage to speak up, we proposed the supervision and control of those abortions, we were accused of being the cause of the Massacre of the Innocents, not only in progress, but of the preceding decades as well.

It is a well-known and very predictable mechanism of mass psychology. The position of Anti-Mafia High Commissioner has recently been created in Sicily' what it is in reality - if you consider what the Mafia is in Sicily - is simply one more anti-drug commissioner. And it interesting to note that it was assigned to a magistrate who, for thirty years, was central in protection for political and State crimes. He never once made trouble for a single Italian in power.

Thus, next Tuesday, when I am called upon to vote on this, I will have to speak up against the current tendency to give full and far-reaching powers once more to anti-Mafia and anti-drug efforts, and say simply that choice will mean that not only will individuals perish, but the law will as well.

This situation is always exploited by those who do not believe in the law, and believe instead that solutions are provided by proclaiming states of emergency, never taking recourse to the law when dealing with violence, and instead raising the banner of State violence before the other violence produced.

My intention in concluding was to express my gratitude. I have digressed slightly into some personal comments. However, I will say that one thing has been established here; the urgent necessity of creating an international anti-prohibitionist league.

It is also essential that we keep in mind the fact that one common principle of civil co-existence and restoration of the value of the law and rights unites us against the destruction of the law and rights by precisely those who have caused this plague. And this situation is one more example of the effects of the divorce from objectivity and science - that same science which for years warned us of the existence of a biosphere. Every one of us knew perfectly well that there would be an Ozone Hole. Now I read in the newspapers that Mr. Reagan suggests that we all - from six years of age onwards - wear sun-glasses as a protection against melanoma and to protect our sight. Here, as in the case of drugs, power is not only stripped nude, it becomes completely made, the moment law is divorced from objective science, and from popular science, because the people understand, and they understand us.

We have, therefore, this dilemma; certain knowledge, even just a bit of it - its mere possession cannot constitute an alibi for any one of us - if we are satisfied simply to possess it, hoard it as our own personal and unshared treasure, will be of no use to anything or anyone, even its possessor.

You have increased the knowledge and consciousness of all of us by sharing the results and conclusions of your years of efforts. In a certain sense, I am sorry to have to thank you, because increased scientific knowledge and consciousness carries with it the damning implication that more and better could be done, and sooner. However, I have been put under pressure before, and for issues I have been less proud of than this one. I thank you once more for having honoured us with your participation. It is by conviction that our party exists precisely because humanity has the honour of including people like you.