ABSTRACT: The federative Agreement stipulated between the Radical Party and the International Antiprohibitionist League will offer people the opportunity to reflect, to make proposals, and to undertake the necessary political action concerning "Antiprohibitionism with regard to drugs".

This is a concrete undertaking which should be supported by your joining the Radical Party.

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The Swiss Federal Government has decided to carry out ten pilot projects involving 500 drug abusers, who will receive the drug they usually consume from the state. It is an experiement, a first step towards formulating a new drugs policy - legalization - which has been called for by Milton Friedman, American Nobel Prizewinner, and Edgar Oblitas, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Bolivia, amongst others.

The Radical Party propses to launch an information offensive and undertake direct political and cultural action to create new laws to uphold legality as opposed to favouring repressive prohibitionist measures which don't make the smallest dent in the enormous power wielded by drug-trafficking organizations. This is also the prime objective of the International Antiprohibitionist League, which stipulated a federative Agreement with the Radical Party during its XXXVI Congress held recently.

(THE PARTY new - N. 7 - May 1992)

It is becoming increasingly difficult for the generals conducting the "war on drugs" to find moral reasons to justify their policies.

They are now being forced to reflect upon their "operations" and their strategies more and more often. The Swiss Federal Government is authorizing - as an experiment - the legal distribution of heroin to reduce the human and social destruction provoked by drug-trafficking and the illegal consumption of drugs. Edgar Oblitas, Chief Jusice of the Supreme Court of Bolivia, has formulated a proposal in favour of legalization to salvage what is left of democracy in a country brought to its knees by the violence of drug-traffickers and the violent countermeasures effected by the anti-drug squads.

Major European cities are organizing themselves, and making an important social commitment by entering into agreements such as the "Resolution of Frankfurt". They are crying out to national governments that they have no means of defending themselves against the threat to public health and order, deriving not from the drugs themselves but from their being illegal. They are meeting at international conferences.

The European Parliament is also taking a position, even if somewhat ambiguous: on the one hand, it is entrusting member countries to implement the recommendations approved by the Commission of Inquiry on Drug-Trafficking, which reqire that the practices adopted in the fight against drug addiction and crime be radically modified; and, on the other hand, it is defending the abstract principles of prohibitionism but at the cost of causing an extremely serious split not only between the two major political groups - the Socialists and the Christian Democrats - but also within the Socialists, the limited majority group. Nevertheless, for the first time - and this is something really new - the European Parliament is obliging the governments of the Community to examine the costs and benefits of prohibitionism, where it has been applied; to evaluate the health risks (AIDS) and the dangers society is exposed to (delinquency, corruption, overloaded legal systems), and the threat to individual freedom (brought about by

the way in which repression increasingly conditions the system which guarantees rule of law).

It is now four years that the Radical Party has been raising the drug issue, first in Italy and then at a transnational level, and pointing out that solving this problem is crucial to international political life in the Nineties.

The Radical Party has succeeded, with very few activists and very little means (just think that the Radical Antiprohibitionist Organization, the most important Italian antiprohibitionist association, has to be content with an annual budget of less than 100,000 US dollars), by launching a continuous information offensive, conducting civil campaigns and putting pressure on elected assemblies, in helping many people to understand just how convenient it is for the most reactionary, centralist and bureaucratic groups, for parties and national governments, to transform a social, human and health issue, into a "religious crusade".

This religious crusade is used as a cover-up for financing worth hundreds of millions of dollars allotted to police organizations and the military apparatus, and colossal sums being wasted on social policies.

It is in the national parliaments that we must raise the question of prohibitionism having become redundant, precisely because it is now more and more evident that corrupt members of government and criminal organizations involved in drug-trafficking, arms-trafficking and the illegal transfer of money, have shared business interests. As far as the use of banned drugs is concerned, it is necessary to become aware, as it was when the issue of divorce and abortion was raised, of the ineffectiveness of sanctimonious policies and the repression that derives from them. We are dealing with human problems which come to light in every culture or religion.The law has to know how to respect them, and come up with answers which protect the rights of each individual, reducing - and not increasing! - the social burdens brought about by individual choice.

In order to offer people the opportunity to reflect, to make concrete proposals, and to undertake the necessary political action, the Radical Party has entered into a federative agreement with the "International Antiprohibitionist League", which was founded on our inititiative in 1989. It is a federative agreement which necessitates a considerable financial commitment from the Radical Party, but it will also permit the League to remain completely autonomous, and become active once more. The "International Antiprohibitionist League" will actively support antiprohibitionist associations and movements throughout the world, and approach important national and supranational organizations at a top scientific and political level.

It is a valid undertaking which should be supported by your joining the Radical Party. In this way, the strong argument for antiprohibitionism does not risk becoming the reason for its political defeat, which could be caused by the gesture of the individual not being given its true value.