ABSTRACT: The Radical Party has made this space available to the International Anti-prohibitionist League (IAL), which is affiliated to the party.

(THE NEW PARTY, MARCH 1993)

The IAL asks parliamentarians, political leaders, and representatives of the world of science and culture to join the association in order to work, at international level, for the abrogation or the radical reform of prohibitionist drugs laws.

It is absolutely necessary to build up a vast network of information and initiatives, and to do so immediately, because there is a constant increase in the number of people in the world who respond to the challenge of violence with the arms of human rights and liberal ideas. The European cities that have signed the Frankfurt Resolution against the criminalization of drug-users, and in favour of a health policy based on harm reduction, will soon be joined by cities in the United States and the American continent. All over the world there are innumerable experiments in social and health policy that have created a real, practical and effective alternative to the failures of prohibitionism. Eighteen months ago the European Parliament expressed its position, through a committee of inquiry into drug-trafficking, against the illusions of repression. The UN was finally forced, in its latest report (published in February 1993), to argue with force against the reasons for legalization, for these reasons are gaining gr

ound within national governments and parliaments.

Meanwhile, however, sheltered behind the drugs war and supported by the millions of dollars that both sides earn, new forms of totalitarianism are rising up all over the planet, hidden behind the mask of crime or that of the police. Very often the face beneath the mask is the same. How long will it take for the fall of the myths behind prohibitionism to be translated into drug policy? How far does the power of the international criminal organizations have to spread before the laws are changed? Joining the IAL means forcing parliaments all over the world to ask themselves questions, finally, about their enormous responsibilities.

The founding members of the IAL include Milton Friedman, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economy, Fernando Savater, philosopher and writer, Rosa del Olmo, professor of Criminology at the University of Caracas, Lester Grinspoon, professor of Psychiatry at the University of Harvard, Kevin Zeeze, Vice-President of the Washington Drug Policy Foundation, Ralph Salerno, former chief of the anti-drugs department of the New York Police, Amato Lamberti, Italian director of the "Observatory on the Camorra", Remo di Natale, professor of Political Science at the University of Sant'Andrea, Bolivia, Richard Stevenson, economist at the University of Valence, Marco Pannella, member of the European and Italian Parliaments and President of the Federal Council of the Radical Party, Ethan Nadelmann, professor at the University of Princeton, and Francis Caballero, professor of Penal Law at the University of Paris.

Marie-Andrée Bertrand, professor of Criminology at the University of Montreal, is the President of the IAL. Marco Taradash, member of the European and Italian Parliaments, is the Executive Secretary, and Antonio Contardo, businessman, is the Treasurer.

Anyone who shares the aims of the IAL and pays the annual fee can become a member. There are three categories of members:

- full members, who take part with voting rights in the General Assembly;

- associate members, who have no voting rights and receive the publications of the IAL;

- affiliated members, which are national or local associations, groups or leagues with similar aims to those of the IAL.