Petition to end 'War on Drugs'

international | eu | other press Sunday April 10, 2005 13:36 by EM - ENCOD xoin at hotmail dot com Dublin

Last year December, the European Parliament approved the 'Catania report' . This report contains recommendations for a fundamental change of drug policy in the European Union.

It is now up to EU authorities to integrate these recommendations in the new EU Drugs Action Plan (2005-2008).

On 21 April, the European Parliament in Brussels organises a Public Hearing on the new Plan, where the top of the EU drug control bureaucracy will be invited. At the Hearing, they will listen to voices of people who are directly involved in the drug issue but never admitted inside the rooms where decisions are taken. The Hearing means a support to the spirit of the Catania report.

When the EU will adopt its new Drugs Plan in June 2005, they will need to take the recommendations of this report into account. If they do this, it will mean a step with great symbolic value, both inside Europe and towards the rest of the world. The Catania report talks a different language, if it "contaminates" the EU Drugs Plan, many national debates can start on the issue of what this means for national practices.

A petition to support the EP report is now open for signature - we should have lots of signatures on 21 april 2005 - so we can present them directly to the EU Authorities during a Public Hearing in Brussels.

Please sign the petition on http://action.encod.org/ and ask others to do the same.
The report is available on the above site.

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