Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-13-Speech-4-025"
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"en.20030213.2.4-025"2
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"Madam President, when we talk about drugs, we clearly mean out-and-out war. We cannot just be content with a few short battles. The battles we are talking about today are preventing and reducing the damage but, clearly, all these measures are, in any case, dependent upon the success of other measures such as combating drug trafficking and consumption.
It must be pointed out that we need to start by addressing a human condition, the condition of drug addicts. We need to change our approach: drug addicts must be treated as people who are ill rather than criminals, and so we need to take lines which are consistent with this view and, therefore, employ treatments which bring about the recovery of drug addicts rather than social exclusion. That is why, out of the two kinds of treatment still being debated, many of us still prefer the more human approach of rehabilitation communities, therapeutic communities, to the administration of chemical substances which are alternatives to or substitutes for drugs. We do not endorse the use of substances such as methadone, except in extreme clinical cases.
In addition to medical and pharmaceutical care, we need to provide drug addicts with psychological help too. First and foremost, we need to step up the fight against the network of traffickers who continue, I regret to say, to be on the scene.
Turning briefly to methadone, I would say that it is a substitution substance which does not resolve the problem of drug dependence and, worst of all, does not bring about the recovery of the drug addict: it is a bit like drugging up someone who is ill and administering pain killers without ever giving them an operation. Mr Blokland and other Members have also mentioned the unsuccessful results of attempts at liberalisation and legalisation in this field: these kinds of approach must be abandoned.
That is why, therefore, I too have taken the liberty of tabling some amendments, which Mr Bowis is kindly going to illustrate during the vote, presenting them to our rapporteur not as replacing but as supplementing the contents of the report. They are amendments which relate, above all, to prevention. Amendment No 60 proposes some ideas for freeing addicts from their dependence, striking at the root of the evil. Amendment No 61 relates to treatments which are not based on drugs but which include a great deal of psychological help for the ill drug addict. Amendment No 62 recommends great caution in providing access to needles, condoms and syringes. Amendments Nos 63 and 64 are on the subject of preventive and preparatory measures, first and foremost, for the people responsible for implementing these measures. Lastly, the other amendments propose measures to combat drugs in prisons, to encourage data collection on prevention and, once again, to discourage substitution treatment, which not only fails to reduce damage and consumption but increases, boosts, the black market."@en1
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