Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-13-Speech-4-016"
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"en.20030213.2.4-016"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am keen to do again what I did in committee, that is, to express my support for our rapporteur Mrs Malliori on this subject, which is, to say the least, a controversial subject that evokes passion. The approach deliberately chosen by the committee and by our rapporteur, that of focussing on providing, on a local scale, step-by-step
programmes
targeting persons addicted to hard drugs, seems to us to be the right one, the one most likely to yield tangible results at grass-roots level and to reverse the current, rather disturbing, tendency. Drug-related deaths are on the up, and that seems to be the case in most of the Member States.
For all these reasons, the Liberal Group welcomes the amendments that add value to this recommendation in terms of public health. Our governments must indeed give priority to high-risk environments. Streets, the penal system, nightclubs, raves, are all places where hard drugs circulate freely and without regard to the minimum standards of health and safety. We must of course prioritise action programmes on the street, in prisons and also in places of nocturnal entertainment where the simultaneous consumption of more than one drug is prevalent. As regards this latter practice of using drugs and alcohol at the same time, which is cutting swathes through young people in particular – and they are getting ever younger – it is imperative that, in parallel with one another, schemes for prevention, information, analysis of chemical substances and providing a rapid response in the event of illness or withdrawal, should be operated and made widely available. The 8000 citizens who are dying every year in the European Union, from overdoses, from adulterated products, or as a result of shared needles, deserve a full-frontal approach to risk reduction on the part of the European Union.
Let me say now that I regret the fact that we have not, in this report, completely succeeded in focussing our attention on this specifically health-related aspect, at the risk of watering down our message and reverting to an ethical and generalised debate, which would again be futile and would attempt to set up prevention and suppression in opposition to each other. I wish to say that I go along with Mr Bowis' arguments and that I am unable to accept those put forward by Mrs Sandberg-Fries.
My conclusion, Madam President, is that we need to set ourselves realistic targets if we are to be able to say, tomorrow at least, that the EU's new action plan on drugs has been a success."@en1
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