I. WE DECLARE:

I. The attempt to eliminate drugs and drug consumption from our civilizations has failed. The demand for drugs has not lingered despite all efforts and everything points to the fact that we will have to continue living with drugs and drug users in the future.

2. Drug use is based on deficits of society and cannot be prevented by drug policy. At its best, drug policy can regulate and limit the results of drug use only.

Drug using is for the majority of users a temporary part of their biography, which can be overcome within the process of mahuring out of addiction. Drug policy may not render this process more diffcult, but it must support this process.

3. A drug policy fighting against addiction exclusively with the criminal law and the compulsion to abstinence and offering govemmental and public aid under the assumption of drug abstinence only has failed: The demand for drugs is still existing, the social and medical misery of users is increasing rapidly, more and more addicts get infected by HIV, more and more users die, the illegal drug trafficking is spreading, making bigger and bigger profits, the dread of people in the r cities towards the drug trafficking and the acquisitive criminality is rising.

4. Drug related problems are not based upon the pharmacological mode of operation of drugs only, but they are rather a result of illegal drug consumption, which in turn makes drugs unclean, expensive and the dose incalculable. Illegal drug consumption is the main cause for the misery of the users, the cases of death and acquisitive criminality. Criminalization is a counter part to drug aid and drug therapy and is a burden for police and justice they cannot carry.

5. The majority of drug users live in cities or they come to the capitals, because there is the market, there is the scene and there is drug aid. Therefore most of all big cities are afflicted with drug problems and, on the other hand, the influence of cities concerning drug policy is limited and conh adicted by the burden such cities have to cany.

II. WE ARE DRAWING THE FOLLOWING CONCLUSIONS:

1. The priorities of drug policy have to be changed dramatically. The aid for drug users must no longer be threatened by criminal law. Moreover together with prevention and education it must become the equal aim of drug policy. In connection with drug related problems it is necessary to lay shress on hamm reduction and repressive forms of intervention must be reduced to the absolute necessary minimum. Prosecution must be limited to fighting illegal drug trafficking. Everybody who wants to reduce criminality, harm, misery and death must liberate users from pressure of prosecution conceming the consumption of drugs and must not tie the offers of drug aid to the strict goal of total drug abstinence. Vis à vis the dead, drug therapy will be too late an offer but aid for survival can be a first step in the direction of mahuring out of addiction.

2. Within drug policy we need a separation of cannabis and other illegal drugs, whose addictive power, dangerousness and culbural integration are differing from each other enormously.

3. The distribution of sterile syringes and needles as well as treatment with methadone are important steps to reduce harm.

4, The option for "Shooting Galleries" providing medical help a.s well a.s the controlled medical distribution of drugs to long time users should be tested under unbiased conditions within a scientific framework.

5. The medically controlled prescribing of drugs to long temm users should be considered unbiased in order to minimize the damage done and scientific testing should be made possible.

6. We need a much better cooperation and coordination conceming drug policy between the cities and their surrounding regions, among the cities as well as among the European countries. If only a small number of cities are following a drug policy that accepts addiction and offers a system of low threshold aid, the afflicted cities will attract drug users like magnets and they will be overstressed by the ensuing problems.

III. THEREFORE WE DEMAND:

l . Our conception of drug policy must be supported legally, organizationally and financially by the national and federal govemments.

2. The decriminalization of buying, possessing and consuming cannabis aike in Amsterdam). The trade of cannabis products should be controlled legally.

3. Consumption of drugs, i.e. buying, possessing and consuming of small quantities of drugs must be declared free of prosecution.

4. The legal, organizational and financial background for the necessary increase in the prescribing of methadone should be established.

5. The legislature and the national govemments have to prepare the background for a low threshold prescribing of methadone (like in Amsterdam) and for a medically indicated and scientifically escorted testing of the giving of drugs. The possibility for a psycho social aid must be ensured.

IV. AGREEMENT

In connection with the European unification and the fall of national frontiers we are confronted with a situation that can only be handled on an international basis and has to rely on the cooperation and coordination between the affected cities. The representatives of the cities that participated in the conference therefore agree in close cooperation with the Council of European Communities and the World Health Organization Section Europe upon the construction of a . cooperation network that ensures the exchange of experiences between the cities on a regular basis. New methods in drug policy shall be discussed and prepared together. Therefore the participating cities strive for realizing the following:

1. the increase of a European coordination concemed wit drug related problems;

2. regular meetings of drug coordinators;

3. exchange of specialists from the fields of drug treatmen prevention, police and public health;

4. city conference on an annual basis.

The circle of cooperating cities shall be enlarged continuous We consider it very important that an institution for the scientific research considering drug related problems on a European basis be founded in close cooperation with the Council of European Communities and the World Health Organization Section Europe. The institution will coordinate and manage scientific research and initiate new ways of dealing with the drug problem in order to ensure scientifically-guided new approaches. The signatories vote for a necessary hammonization of nationa legal systems in regard to the European unification on a basis of a policy of decriminalization and depenalization of drug users and hamm reduction.

Frankfurt a.M.

22 November 199

Paul Vasseur

DRUGS COORDINATOR

AMSTERDAM

Stadträtin Margarethe Nimsch

DEZERNENTIN FÜR FRAUEN UND GESUNDHEIT

FRANKFURT AM MAIN

Dr. Horst Bossong

DROGENEEAUFTRAGTER

HAMBURG

Stadträtin Dr. Emilie Iieberherr

VORSTEHERIN DES SOZIALAMTES

ZURICH