Meeting of editorial board of Moscow News with public.

On March 28 editorial board of Moscow News organized a meeting with public in a hall of Moscow Metrostroj Club. I being on this meeting from Radical Party asked an observer of the newspaper Evgenia Markova - an expert in medicine - wether she thinks that the proper way of solving the drugs using problem is prohibition of drugs and does she see any negative consequences of prohibitionism. She replied that sellers of drugs and those who are engaged in mafia mast be persecuted strictly and liquidation of the prohibition will surely lead to great increase of drugs using. When she was asked about freedom of personal choice she said that using of drugs is not a matter of a private person. I was not able to object to it as some people began to whistle and shout that it is a very narrow question and it is not interesting to anybody though I tried to explain that the question of freedom of choice is not "narrow" at all. Nobody from Moscow News - the most progressive Soviet newspaper - supported me.

Alexander Pronozin