ABSTRACT: All over the world there is a tendency to continue to follow the path of prohibitionism with regard to drugs, a path characterized by misinformation, financial interests and reactionary intentions which has led to violence and the abuse of the law in the life of individual states in the last fifteen or twenty years. The drugs market is expanding continuously, from the ex-USSR to Latin America and Africa.

Governments are re-introducing life sentences and the death penalty, spending vast sums of money, in vain, for the conversion of plantations, and refusing to see the human, social, economic and political costs of the failure of prohibitionism. The attack against liberalism, justice and tolerance is unprecedented. Will the Radical Party have the power to organize a "UN campaign" aimed at initiating a real debate throughout the world, within a given time, on the question of prohibitionism versus anti-prohibitionism?

(THE NEW PARTY, MARCH 1993)

The following words were written by Vanna Barenghi, one of the promoters of the "Third Conference of European Cities" which have adhered to the "Frankfurt Resolution" and President of Co.R.A., the Radical Party association which fights in Italy to introduce new laws on drugs: "I no longer remember who, during a debate in which I was taking part some time ago, compared the Western governments and their drug policies to someone who, faced with a nuclear reaction about to explode, continues to try to catch the rising cloud with a net instead of running to turn the reactor off. The image seems to me to correspond perfectly to what is happening with the traffic of drugs. What we need to do is to turn the reactor off, legalize drugs, and no longer try to catch the clouds as we have done so far."