Your Majesty Queen of Norway,
Your Excellency President of Island,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my honour and pleasure, as a Chairman of the Advisory Board of ECAD to thank so many Mayors and Deputy Mayors from distant cities of Europe for making the journey to the City of Oslo to participate in this the 12-th Mayors Conference.

At the outset I must thank the Mayor of Oslo and his City Council for hosting this years Conference bringing together a range of experts on the theme of narcotics industry and its victims. This is the supreme policy forming body in our organisation and the annual Conference gives the leaders of our European cities an opportunity to come together, share their expertise, knowledge and experience on means and methods to come to grips with perilous illegal drug industry and in the process bring hope and care to those of our European citizens who suffer from its horrific consequences.

ECAD was founded in 1994 as a counterforce against the drug legislation and harm reduction movements.
A number of European mayors decided to unite in a fight for a drug-free Europe for their citizens. Among the first cities to join were Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, London and Oslo.
These founding members were fearful of the social tendency to acquiescence in the drug abuse culture, which was a feature of Europe then and unfortunately continues to be a characteristic of too many European cities today.
We can look back over the past twelve years and see the social changes and the tolerance of illegal drug abuse, which have become common practice in some cities.

There were proposals when ECAD was founded as there are today for legalising cannabis. Some cities give heroin to heroin addicts and others have opened special municipal rooms where drug addicts can inject illegal drugs while the municipal carers look on. The decision-makers who pursue such policies have given up hope and faith in people.

ECAD firmly believes that it is wrong to wash our hands in a ”Pilate-like” fashion and abandon human beings, our fellow-citizens of Europe and allow them and facilitate them to wallow in a life filled with life-destroying drugs. We must never give up the hope and the determination that a fellow being may be assisted to live a delightful drug-free life. To place a young person in a maintenance programme with a lifelong intake of drugs, even if supervised by a doctor, is to give up the hope and abandon the determination of conquering the drug abuse addiction.

The mayors, deputy mayors and city officials who are attending this conference are totally up to date on the economic, social and cultural conditions in their cities. We are all dedicated to the ongoing task of making our cities better places in which to live, to work, to bring up ones family and enjoy our leisure hour. We are continually researching strategies to ensure that economic growth and social development continue to be a feature of life in our city.
Simultaneously we cannot refuse to acknowledge and to be aware of the enormous social problems which illegal drugs pose in our cities.

When ECAD speak of a drug-free Europe there are many spokespersons who reject it as being a Utopian objective.
If I had told you fifteen years ago that the European Championship in Horse Jumping would be organised in July 2005 by a group of former addicts in a treatment centre in northern Italy – San Patrignano – I would probably be accused of being in cloud cuckoo land. San Patrignano – where your Advisory Board met in February last – is proof that it its not right to give up on any single drug addict.

San Patrignano is living proof that it is possible to get back to a life without drugs and to do so completely without the help of drugs.
You need to visit San Patrignano to understand its commitment to people.
You need to see with your own eyes the fantastic things they produce.
You need to look into the bright and alert eyes of those men and women who have regained their dignity and health and who proudly demonstrate their daily work for you.
So instead of becoming increasingly tolerant our cities must renew their commitments to protect our citizens from the devastating problems which illegal drugs pose for individuals, for families and for municipal authorities.

At this 12-th Mayors Conference ECAD does not look back in anger, or forward in fear but we look around us in awareness.
We are aware of the things that are diminishing the quality of life of people in our cities.
We are proud that ECAD is lighting candles of hope in lives of individual persons and families and we shall continue to protect people and assist and comfort them when their lives are damaged by drug abuse.

George Bernard Shaw said - ” Some men see things that are and say why.”
But I see things that never were and say - ”Why not?”
It is in that spirit of exploration, initiative and enterprise ECAD says – ”Let us work for a drug-free Europe!”
- Why not!

 
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