ABSTRACT: We publish the preamble to the document approved in November 1991 by the European Parliament Commission of Inquiry into the spread of organized crime connected with drug trafficking in member countries of the European Community.

(THE PARTY new - n. 6 - march 1992)

The criminal organizations that manage the trafficking of drugs have seen their power grow enormously. This has ever more serious repercussions on society and on the political institutions of member states, undermining the foundations of the legal economy and threatening the stability of Community nations. Thanks to the huge profits that can be made in drug trafficking, criminal organizations are able to corrupt state structures at all levels.

The extremely high prices of drugs on the open market is a cause of delinquency, lack of safety, disorder and social and racial discrimination. The health of users of illegal drugs suffers not just from the effects of the substances they take, but also because of the state of illegality in which the drug market develops.

In the community, particularly in some countries, the spread of organized crime, its financial power, its ability to infiltrate public institutions and to steer electoral behaviour add up to an ability to condition and blackmail that weighs upon political decision-making. On more than one occasion, the recent BCCI scandal being a case in point, clear links have emerged between criminal groups and secret services or other State authorities, engaged in subversive acts or in money laundering, in secret funding or in the exploitation of financial institutions themselves. All of this weakens political will to strike at the main headquarters of international drug trafficking.

In the light of this situation, the European Parliament has put forward a series of recommendations designed to improve the effectiveness of repression, in conformity with the contents of the 1988 Vienna Convention. These recommendations are based on the following criteria: police forces, customs officers and the judiciary must concentrate their activities on repressing trafficking and the crime of money laundering, at the same time guaranteeing full respect of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual; the various Community, national and regional services and institutions dedicated to this repression must be under parliamentary control.

The policies that so far have been pursued have not done what they were supposed to: block, or at least reduce the penetration of drug trafficking in the EC. Until now, repression has had an incidence estimated at between 5 and 15% of the traffick of drugs and its consequent traffick in capital. Now is the moment to assess whether, providing it is possible, a determinant increase in the effectiveness of repression can to a meaningful (if not definitive) degree counter trafficking, or if it is time to resort to other strategies.

The Commission has requested an assessment of the costs and benefits of current drugs policy, taking the following indicators into account: the living conditions of users of illegal drugs; the spread of AIDS and risks of overdose among addicts; the role of the drug-related economy in less-developed regions; the influence of drug trafficking and the penetration of criminal organizations in the political system and in public administration; the number and nature of violent crime in cities; the ratio of trials for crimes relating to drug laws with respect to total judiciary activity and the prison population.

There must be room for drawing up new policies.

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Marco Taradash

Marco Taradash, vice-chairman of the Commission of Inquiry on drug trafficking in the European Community, and a member of the Federal Council of the Radical Party, states:

"At least on a formal level, the monopoly of prohibitionist ideology over drug policy is over. This is the first step to put an end to the monopoly of criminal organizations on the traffic in drugs. For the Commission, there is a need to carry out a check on the costs and benefits of the policy thus far followed by individual parliaments within the Community, on the basis of indicators ranging from the spread of delinquency to the clogging of courts, from the spread of AIDS and the risk of overdose among addicts to corruption in politics and in the economy. It follows that there must be a predisposition to draw up a new policy on the following grounds: "the possession of drugs for personal consumption should not be considered a crime," and "the care of drug addicts should not longer be hampered by penal laws'. Recommendations are for controlled administering of drugs, free distribution of syringes, the use of replacement drugs, such as methadone or temgesic. At the same time, to strike at the laundering of d

rug money, the Commission is calling for an examination of means suitable for preventing the accumulation of such profits through the regulation of the commerce of substances that at the moment are illegal".