Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-24-Speech-3-479"
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"en.20071024.44.3-479"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say something about the demand side and something about the supply side.
On the demand side, Mr Tatarella, who is no longer with us, and Mr Howitt raised the problem of overproduction: the fact that the opium currently available actually exceeds demand for processing into opiates for drugs. That is true, but it is true only of current demand levels.
What the report attempts to address is potential demand. Some 80% of the world’s population has no access whatsoever to painkillers, even for the commonest operations, for amputations or for the care of cancer sufferers. That is what we are talking about, and the International Narcotics Control Board bears partial responsibility for the absence of a global policy to promote painkilling drugs.
On the supply side, I would take the liberty of saying to the Commissioner that this proposed pilot project would indeed cost money, resources from the taxpayer. That is true, but the existing policy costs huge amounts of taxpayers’ money.
The problem is simple, therefore. What we are asking you to check is whether it is more difficult and more costly to go in and forcibly uproot crops from one area which will then very probably be moved to the adjoining area, or else to buy up that harvest and process it on the spot, under supervision by the international community, so that it cannot be used to produce heroin but is used there and then to produce medicines. The second alternative is less costly, in my opinion, including for European citizens and taxpayers."@en1
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