MINORITY OPINION 1

by Maurizio Turco
on the Commission proposal with a view to the adoption of a Council framework decision laying down minimum provisions on the constituent elements of criminal acts and penalties in the field of illicit drug trafficking (COM(2001) 259 - C5-0359/2001 - 2001/0114(CNS))

As a result of prohibition, what was originally a small-scale phenomenon has now grown to massive proportions.
As a result of prohibition, thousands of people die from overdoses and transmissible diseases, especially Aids.
As a result of prohibition, organised crime has been able, at no expense to itself, to secure a monopoly on the production and distribution of prohibited drugs.
As a result of prohibition, thousands of young people are sent to gaol, which means that prisons are full of innocent people, police forces are distracted from other duties and the courts are kept from their task of prosecuting criminals.
It needs to be made quite clear that the drugs which move freely around the world and which are associated with dirty money and mafias, corruption and Aids, are prohibited drugs.
We need to assume political reponsibility rather than seek moral self-absolution, to acknowledge that prohibition has failed and to devise new policies designed to remedy the damage caused in particular by prohibition.
The purpose of my vote is to indicate that I distance myself categorically from those who, for ethical or Realpolitik reasons of varying validity, currently condemn millions of often young and very young people to clandestine practices, who effectively encourage crime, who severely test the ability of entire countries and geographical areas to protect themselves from corruption, and who perpetutate the existence of drugs empires based on intolerant religious or military regimes.

MINORITY OPINION 2

by Marco Cappato
on the Commission proposal with a view to the adoption of a Council framework decision laying down minimum provisions on the constituent elements of criminal acts and penalties in the field of illicit drug trafficking (COM(2001) 259 - C5-0359/2001 - 2001/0114(CNS))

My colleague Chris Davies was arrested in Stockport on 15 December 2001 after reporting himself to be in possession of cannabis. The same thing happened to me on 20 December 2001. In Italy, 40 anti-prohibition militants are on trial for having passed on cannabis free of charge. For the same offence committed on two different occasions the radical leader Marco Pannella was acquitted on 12 February 2002 and sentenced the following day. Although he reported himself for cannabis possession in Stockport, he was not arrested. The purpose of our non-violent action is to draw attention to the scandal of ridiculous laws which lead to violence and death, which nurture mafias, which are unenforceable in real life and which are often not enforced - out of a sense of responsibility - by those (policemen and magistrates) who are supposed to do so. As regards the anti-prohibitionist reform which is needed in the interests of freedom, the responsibility of the individual, civil rights and democracy, the Oostlander report represents an attempt at a prohibitionist counter-reform and a first step towards committing all European governments to prohibitionism camouflaged by the need to harmonise penal law, in the absence of any democratic control whatsoever. For this reason I have voted against the Oostlander report and the Commission proposal and I call on my colleagues to do likewise.