The Antiprohibitionist strategy

ABSTRACT: The Radical Party's proposal: to wipe out drug trafficking and the criminal organizations which thrive on it; to ensure that addicts do not commit acts of violence against the general public to procure money for drugs; to reduce the number of drugs-related deaths; to stop the spread of AIDS caused by the use of non-sterile syringes.

(The Party New, n.4, September 1991)

On 15 December 1988, the group elected on the Radical ticket in the Italian Chamber of Deputies presented a bill that represents the first attempt to transform the Antiprohibitionist policy into legislation. The main aims of the bill were the following:

a) to wipe out drug trafficking and the criminal organizations which thrive on it;

b) to create the necessary circumstances to ensure that the population no longer has to subnmit to acts of violence perpepetrated by addicts in an attempt to procure money for drugs;

c) to reduce the number of drugs-related deaths and to improve the lives of drug addicts who are looked upon as social rejects who are controlled by criminals and forced to live in a state of squalor and unlawfulness;

d) to stop the spread of AIDS caused by the use of non-sterile syringes;

The report which accompanied the bill summarizes the main provisions of the bill itself:

1) the creation of regulations governing all psychoactive substances (a more precise scientific definition than "narcotic" and "psychotropic" which are commonly used) or, in other words, "drugs";

2) the reclassification of psychoactive substances, including (in descending order of risks and dangers) alcoholic drinks over 20· proof, tobaccos and cannabis;

3) the inclusion of heroin and cocaine in the official pharmacocopoeia, and their becoming a government monopoly;

4) the legalization of cannabis;

5) a form of taxation that establishes a retail price for the drugs in direct proportion to the risk involved: i.e., cannabis would retail at the same price as tobacco, while heroin and cocaine would sell at ten times and twenty times the price of spirits respectively;

6) a ban on all normal advertising, but the creation of informative campaigns to alert the public as to the risks and dangers involved with all substances, including alcohol and tobacco;

7) the distribution of all psychoactive substances (including heroin and cocaine, but excluding alcohol, tobacco and cannabis) exclusively through chemists;

8) the possibility for every doctor to prescribe psychoactive substances (a maximum of three daily doses) and being obliged to inform the person requesting the "drugs" of their particular characteristics, their known effects and the risks involved in taking them ("informed consent");

9) the possibility of guaranteeing controlled and prolonged distribution of psychoactive substances upon the specific request of drug users, by means of a ticket that would ensure them a 90-day supply of the drug to which they are addicted;

10) the suppression of all production, manufacture, sale, distribution, purchasing and import/export of psychoactive substances (drugs), with the exception of the legal procedures specified above.

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Capone's friends support prohibition

ABSTRACT: America's reply to Al Capone's criminal organization was to legalize, tax and control the quality of liquor, and regulate its sale. Today, we could beat the drug traffickers with the same strategy.

(The Party New, n.4, September 1991)

The Economist

March 1988

"There have always been solutions to problems as serious as drug trafficking and its tragic consequences. America's answer to Al Capone's racket was not to declare war on the criminal gangs but to legalize, tax and regulate the sale of quality-controlled liquor.

The State lottery and legal casinos whose earnings are taxed constitute the most effective weapons against illicit gambling dens".

The Financial Times

September 1989

"President Bush held up a small plastic bag of crack and affirmed that this drug 'is turning our cities into battlefields and killing our sons and daughters'. In saying this, he is overlooking the fact that it is not the actual drug that is responsible for the above tragedies but the fact that its sale is unregulated, and it it is sold on a black market run by criminal gangs".

The Independent

September 1989

"A study carried out by the Cato Institute of Washington reveals that banning drugs forces users to turn to crime, obliges them to enter into contact with professional criminals, induces enterprising young people from the lower social classes to turn to a profitable life of crime, encourages gang warfare, results in users taking impure drugs - often in dangerously high quantities - administered in such a way as to constitute a health hazard, and greatly increases law enforcement costs. It is not drug abuse as such that causes the majority of the damage but crime generated by prohitionism. It is time for Western governments to legalize the sale of drugs in some way, as this would deprive the pushers of their market and oblige known drug users to undergo therapy. The way to beat drug trafficking is to eliminate the enormously high profit factor and destroy the myth surrounding drug taking itself, by launching a powerful information offensive to acquaint the public with the dangers involved".

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Can we stop drugs in the East?

ABSTRACT: The next few months will be crucial in preventing Eastern Europe from adopting the Western prohibitionist policy, which drug traffickers fully support. We have to take immediate action and organize a political force that will campaign for the legalization of banned drugs.

(The Party New, n.4, September 1991)

When the Communist regime used the police to control the people and kept them in a state of poverty, drug addicts in the East managed as best they could. At that time, they could never have been termed an important economic factor. Now, things are beginning to change, and this is confirmed by the latest report from the UN, published in Vienna, in January 1991: a change in one's financial situation means a change in the drugs one uses. Today, people who start operating on the illegal drugs circuit are certain to improve their social status, and financial position, by leaps and bounds. This phenomenon has already occurred in wide sectors of the Latin American and Hispanic communities, and amongst the blacks in the US ghettoes.

An initial estimate has been made regarding criminal organizations that have moved into drug trafficking. 2067 such organizations had already been identified in the Soviet Union by March 1989. A number destined to multiply itself if, according to official information released by the Ministry of the Interior, 500,000 people were charged with criminal association and violation of the alcohol laws when vodka was banned during prohibition in Russia in the mid-eighties. The risk of the onset of drug trafficking is disturbing East-West relations, and creating alarm in the newborn and extremely vulnerable democracies, to such an extent that it was precisely the Eastern countries that asked the UN in February 1990 to declare the last 9 years of this centuries "years against drugs".