ABSTRACT: Replying to a question by the special Drug Commission of the European Parliament, Giancarlo Arnao, doctor and author of many books on drugs, deals with the issue of the safeguarding of society from the criminal behaviour of drug addicts. The failure of the present policy of legal control.

("Single issue" booklet for the XXXV Congress of The Radical Party - Budapest 22-26 april 1989)

On the level of social well-fare, (that is of the "collective safeguarding" of criminal behaviour linked to drug use) the estimate of legal control appears hardly convincing, if it is considered from the historic angle.

At the beginning of the century, even if the phenomenon of drug abuse was quantitively equal or superior to that of today, it did not provoke any risk for collectivity. In the present situation, the attempt to limit it by means of legal control, has created two large areas of criminality: 1) on the level of use, an enormous distribution of petty crime; 2) on the level of production and dealing, the development of powerful structures of organised crime.

It can therefore be concluded speculating that the spreading of criminality could be the price we are forced to pay in order not to increase the risks connected with the individual safeguarding of potential users.

Put this way, the problem can appear insoluble. It is therefore essential to remember that legal control is not necessarily the only means available.

It becomes obvious that the policy of legal control does not seem, in my opinion, destined to achieve positive results in the foreseeable future.

In perspective, it is necessary to find an "alternative means" of legal control to induce people to become aware of the risks of drug abuse. In the immediate future, the possibility exists of a series of intermediate solutions (legalisation, and or decriminalisation of some substances or behaviour, on the basis of what has been done in certain countries) which could interrupt some of those mechanisms which have determined the failure of the policy of legal control.