Background
to Drugs and Society
Dilemmas confronting advocates of legalisation & decriminalisation.
Introduction: EURAD
EURAD - Europe Against Drugs - is a grass roots movement comprised of European parent, youth and other concerned citizens' organisations co-operating in the prevention of drug abuse. EURAD Foundation is not religiously or politically affiliated and addresses social and political issues only when they concern drugs. EURAD works closely with scientists and experts in the field of drug abuse.
EURAD Aims:
- to promote humane restrictive drug policies of prevention
and early intervention against drug abuse in order
to prevent further damage to individuals and society.
- to prevent any form of legalisation of drugs recognising
the 1961 UN Single Convention (amended in 1972) and
the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances as
basic platforms for current and future drug control.
- to improve European cooperation in support of families
with drug problems.
- to promote the education of parents, youth and other concerned citizens about all matters concerning drug abuse through accurate, relevant and up-to-date information and research findings.
EURAD advocates a preventive demand restrictive strategy.
Drugs & Society
EURAD was founded to counteract the increasing illegal drugs market. Today Europe already has a gigantic problem which was created by the legal drugs. Illegal drugs constitute an additional problem which have the potential to make the drug abuse situation almost impossible to deal with.
Since alcohol and tobacco, for example, are both legal and established in our societies and both production and their distribution are subject to the control of society, measures taken against addiction and injuries can and must employ different strategies that those which apply to illegal drugs.
The simple fact that we already have a number of drugs is no argument for the legalisation of additional drugs with, in many cases, even more destructive qualities.
A Moral Question and a Democratic Question
There are naturally humanitarian and socially well-founded reasons for EURAD' s standpoint on the question of illegal drugs. The standpoint is also moral in that it emanates from the firm conviction that drugs constitute a serious threat to national health, to a society under law, to social solidarity and, in the long-term, to a healthy democracy.
International Work - Where to put Pressure
At the United Nations International Conference on Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (ICDAIT) in Vienna in June 1987, universal support was given to the established principle that all non-medical drug use must be prohibited.
The 1961 Un Single Convention (amended in 1972) and the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances serve as basic platforms for current and future drug control. The United Nations and all its members strive to ensure that the use of drugs (controlled substances) be strictly limited to medical and scientific purposes.
Our joint international efforts to gain control of the world's mutual drugs problem must naturally be further developed. But the most important contribution to this work should be the individual ability and desire of each country to forcefully combat its domestic drugs trade which, in turn, is part of the prerequisite for the international trade. Domestic policies cannot be formulated in isolation and there should be no conflict between the international and national perspectives concerning measures to be taken. However, it is necessary to determine where the heaviest pressure should be applied. In addiction there must be improvements in the utilisation and distribution of historic information and experiences gained during successful struggles against the drugs trade in various countries. In the confrontation between theories and practice, a fruitful scientific development can arise and become of decisive importance to individual nations.
 |
