ABSTRACT: A national demonstration on Saturday 24th of March to solicit a policy of reformation against the criminal drug market; a demonstration against the suicidal and homicidal prohibition.

(Notizie Radicali n. 51 of the 2nd of March 1990)

A POLICY OF REFORMATION AGAINST THE CRIMINAL DRUG MARKET

NATIONAL ANTI-PROHIBITIONIST DEMONSTRATION

TO DEFEAT THE CRAXI-JERVOLINO-GAVA LAW

Rome, Piazza Navona, Saturday 24 March 1990

To eliminate the violence connected to the drug traffic. To eradicate the economic reasons for the diffusion of drugs. To end an intolerable situation of emergency. To dramatically reduce the power of all the mafias and to make civil life possible in every Italian region.

The government's draft bill can and must be defeated. To punish the drug-addict and the user of any substance as if, for this very fact, he were a criminal, is unfair and contrary to the principles of the democratic state.

Not only. It is a remedy which is one hundred times worse than the evil it wants to eliminate, because:

- it will turn hundreds of thousands of people, guilty only of harming their own health, into outlaws, and among these also the consumers of substances which do not create addiction and are infinitely less harmful compared to cigarettes or alcoholic beverages;

- it will force all drug-addicts, even those who up to now have never committed any offence against people or things, to hide, to become clandestines, with all the consequences which can be imagined: a greater diffusion of AIDS and of the diseases linked to the use of infected needles, an ever more complete and painful alienation, a stronger and constant link with criminality, an increase in micro-criminality;

- it will severe any relation based on confidence between drug-addicts and physicians, who will be forced by the law to turn into spies for the magistracy, wiping away any possibility of a non-traumatic exit from drug-addiction;

- it will cause the final collapse of the judicial administration, which is absolutely incapable of facing the tens of thousands of new judiciary proceedings it will be buried by;

- it will overwhelm the work of the police forces in a continuous, useless, endless and costly manhunt, making the life of citizens even less secure.

PROHIBITION IS NOT EFFECTIVE.

THE PUNISHMENT WHICH THE NEW LAW WOULD WANT TO INFLICT WILL ONLY INCREASE THE IMPOTENCE OF THE STATE, WHICH IS ALREADY INCAPABLE OF EXERTING A SANITARY AND SOCIAL CONTROL OVER THE TRADE AND THE CONSUMPTION OF DRUGS.

To punish the consumers and the drug-addicts will be ineffective. It is sufficient to consider what is going on in the countries which have stricter laws, such as the US, Germany or Switzerland, where the criminality and the mortality for overdoses have reached higher levels as compared to our countries. Why then continue to advocate the reasons of prohibition? Is it really possible to do so without declaring one's hypocrisy or one's cynicism? Without being ashamed of jeopardizing the life of hundreds of thousands of future victims of the violent behaviours of those who must find the money to pay the drug-pushers?

TO OPPOSE THE CRAXI-GAVA LAW IS NOT ENOUGH.

A HUMAN AND EFFECTIVE LAW IS NEEDED.

We want the trade of drugs to be regulated and submitted to controls, controls which the state could impose once it had destroyed the monopoly of the criminal organizations. We want the sale of drugs to no longer yield profits.

We want the poppy flowers or the coca leaves to have the value they would have if there were no black market, that is, close to zero.

We want the drug-addicts to no longer need to steal, push and prostitute.

We want the State to help the drug-addicts - if they wish to be helped - or to put them in the conditions to resort to therapeutical communities of their choice or to benefit from the assistance of their physician.

ONLY BY DESTROYING THE IMMENSE VALUE WHICH PROHIBITION ADDS TO DRUGS WILL WE SUCCEED IN RESTORE TO LIFE ITS IMMENSE VALUE.