Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me take this opportunity to say that it is an honor to welcome you to our city. I am glad to see so many of you here today. Thank you for the giving me the opportunity to speak to you this morning, on a matter that we care deeply about in the City of Göteborg.
Thank you also to ECAD - the European Cities against Drugs, for your excellent work in this field.
I would also like to especially thank the previous speaker – the distinguished Mr. Costa, Director for the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime – for joining us here today. Sweden has always been strong advocate for the UN conventions on drugs, and I know you personally have pointed to our successful drug control policies.
As we gather here today, we do so with a common purpose. We believe in the importance of maintaining restrictive and humane drug policies. We believe that the fight against drugs is a common and shared responsibility, and that this fight must build upon international cooperation. We believe that joint efforts nurture good ideas. We continue to believe in the fierce urgency of the resolution signed in Stockholm now 15 years ago (1994), starting off the European Cities against Drugs (ECAD).
This year, the City of Göteborg focuses extensively on activities to manifest our fight against illicit drugs and drug abuse. We have especially marked this year to further highlight the intentions of the United Nations conventions in this area. In this work, we have emphasized the importance that all parts of the City’s organization participate. Because this is not a question for one area of work, but for many.
Successful public health initiatives have often been the results of active citizenship - not least in the civil society. If our fight against drugs is not rooted in wide, public support - our quest is lost beforehand.
Local cooperation is a prerequisite for our success. To this, it is imperil to act together on an international scale.
As we all know, achievements are restricted if you go alone. The situation regarding drugs, the attitudes and work towards drugs is highly dependant upon the work done in other countries. Together, we can go far if our aim and purpose are common and our will resolute. The interests that would have us fail are many, and the economic forces strong. But if we stand together, share our ideas and in international cooperation bring our cause forward, there is no stopping us. This fight requires international cooperation, because international drug trading knows no boundaries. Therefore, we must all do our part.
The city of Göteborg wants to make its commitment absolutely clear when it comes to the international fight against drugs. Our vision is that of a drug free society.
There can be no place for drugs in our communities, in our cities, in our societies or indeed in our world.
The drug free society has long been the aim of our national drug policy. It has stood the test of time, different trends and has not heeded to liberalization advocates. The liberalization movement is forceful, but together we must persevere and overcome these efforts. They have absolutely no place in a modern society.
As former chairperson for the National Drugs Commission, our findings when we delivered our final report eight years ago were clear – Sweden’s restrictive drug policy must be sustained and reinforced. This is a finding that must be evoked still.
It is my firm belief, and that of a vast majority of the Swedish people, that our drug policy must remain restrictive, and never lose sight of its vision. It is a demanding vision, a high objective - one that will not have you rest. It is about our society’s attitude to drugs: we do not accept drugs becoming an integrated part in our society.
This vision does not fulfill itself. Indeed, one of the findings of the Drugs Commission was that Swedish drug policy was at the crossroads – either we face the bare facts that our vision can only be sustained through sufficient funding and with a clear sense of leadership and direction. Or, we can lower our sights and allow a considerable acceptance of drug abuse. In the long run, I believe, such a stance would slowly but surely start to tear at the very social fabric of our society.
Let’s be honest. During the nineties, the care and treatment of drug abusers in Sweden was a field subjected to extensive spending cuts and downgrading by municipalities. In many places, the essential continuity of operations was lost and our most valuable resources, our competent personnel, gone. I’m glad to say that that was equally not the case in Göteborg – an investment that has indeed paid of, not least in human regards.
The Swedish drug policy has traditionally rested firmly upon three aspects – prevention, control and treatment, and continues to do so. These aspects are intertwined, each one equally important.
This, I believe, is one of the keys to success. Each of these aspects has to work at the same time to curb demand and reduce the availability of drugs – this, together with norms and attitude towards drugs, is absolutely crucial.
In economic hardship, it may be easy to resort to simply evoking control measures as the predominant mode. Forgetting the preventive measures, among these societal information and working with attitudes, will be costly. I like to view it as the society’s signal system – to send a clear message how we want our society to look like.
Dear guests,
By gathering here today, in this important forum, is one important way of going about our urgent work. By doing this, we send a clear, unequivocal message – and by making drug abuse a socially unacceptable form of behavior, I believe it will remain a marginalized societal phenomenon. This again, requires civic support. To get that support, you would have to exercise something that sometimes counts as an act of bravery – political and visionary leadership.
Political leadership, as I see it, cannot be reduced to petty, partisan politics. We must be united by a common good. We need a strong political leadership of drug policy.
We need an active leadership at all levels of society.
We need local initiatives and local coordination of our efforts.
We need the support of central authorities when it comes to research, development of methods and competence.
The task for the political leadership then comes to this:
- First, in setting the vision and providing the resources necessary
- Secondly, in aiming to bring the different parts of the organization together working in a holistic approach.
- And third, never loosing sight of the follow-up process within the organization.
Let me come back to the need for a holistic approach in our work against drug abuse later.
Hopefully, more countries will come to realize this, and for example Great Britain has upgraded the classification of this drug, five years after downgrading it. It was stated as an important health message, which is fair enough, however still is not enough.
Our message here today is unequivocal, our stance firm. Our message is an important health message indeed.
I noted that in a statement at a previous Mayor’s Conference in Istanbul, one of the speakers pointed to the fact the British newspaper The Independent issued an apology to the British people. It turned out, after downgrading cannabis; it nearly doubled the number of youth seeking treatment for cannabis use.
I have but one grade for cannabis – illegal.
Dear guests,
We have a vision in Göteborg of a sustainable society. An economically, ecologically and socially sustainable city, where each aspect intertwines with the other.
If your society, your city is not socially sustainable, it cannot be economically or ecology sustainable either.
It is my firm belief that we must see our fight against drugs from all of these dimensions – stemming of course from the famous Bruntland-report - if we want to be successful in the long run.
A society with vast socio – economic inequalities cannot win the fight against drugs.
As a large city, drugs pose a special threat. The scale of the cities can sustain drugs markets, and reinforce them yet again.
Lately, in Sweden, we have seen a rise in the number of drug related deaths among our youth, as availability increases. This is indicated by falling drug market prices. Restricting the availability of drugs cannot be underestimated.
We are all affected of drug abuse. Not least the children living in families were parents suffer from drug abuse are affected by this. These children are sometimes referred to as the .
In Göteborg, our vision to realize the sustainable city as I have described it to you starts from what we believe to be the ends and means to every political decision – the children. We believe in putting the children first – to see every aspect of political initiatives from their point of view.
Then, and only then, we believe that the sustainable society can come about. The conditions, under which the children grow up today, will shape tomorrow’s society.
It is only in this realization, that we can start creating our societies in a sustainable fashion.
No child must ever be forgotten, and never left behind. In making our cities drug-free, we are making the streets safer for our children, and sustainable for their ever more promising future ahead.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I believe, that our fight against illicit drugs emancipates from the inalienable right of human beings. It is hard to talk about this topic and not to refer to that fantastic universal UN declaration signed more then sixty years ago – the declaration of human rights.
It is, of course, about the welfare of human beings, and as a consequence, our entire society. It is quite hard to talk about this issue and not bring up the objective for our efforts, the human being, and her inalienable rights.
It is our firm belief and vision that a drug free society is an essential path in furthering the emancipation of human beings.
It has been said about drugs that they function as the negotiation of human rights.
I want to linger in discussing the human rights aspect. In our work to fight drugs, we must safeguard these rights. We all know, that a drug addict is far from the very essence of humans – that of freedom and being able to make free decision for his or her future.
At the same time, I believe, this calls upon us to put our fight in a broader societal context. We must build a socially sustainable society, starting by securing good living conditions for our children and youth.
We must work together to create a society free from fear, with a right to security – a society where everyone can reach their full potential.
Our public health policies - because we must view this as a public health concern - must tackle broad community cohesion issues such as poverty and social inequalitiesmust tackle broad community cohesion issues such as poverty and social inequalities.
This fight is part of an overall political struggle to secure good living conditions for all, beginning with a more equitable start in life.
Drug abuse is never solely the concern of the individual, but demands the attention of every one of us. This is why we view our drug policy as a part of our welfare and social policy.
The social determinants for health, as for example laid out in the World Health Organization’s Marmot Commission, I believe, could also be viewed upon as the determinants for drug abuse. It concerns the holistic approach I talked about earlier and one, as I described earlier, we try to apply here in our city by using the three dimensions.
Illicit drug use can be closely associated with social disadvantages, and is an important factor in worsening the health inequalities that stems for that social position.
The chain of causes is two folded, and the factors intensify one another. The organized economic interests that benefits from these destructive situations are strong, and they are many. Where ever they are seeking a foothold, we must move collectively and swift in making them unsuccessful.
We must meet them head-on, by building our societies on the guiding principle of equality, by restricting our drug policies and by forceful public health work.
If we build such a sustainable city as I have outlined above, viewing equity in daily living conditions as a prerequisite– I am convinced, we will realize our vision of a drug-free society, of a drug-free city.
We must provide the tools necessary for a broad, democratic participation. This range, as the World Health Organization has pointed out, from adequate working conditions, the right to full and fair employment and decent work. It concerns such fundamental matter as the access to education, the access to universal health care, the level of gender equity and our cities’ level of inclusion and participation. I cannot stress this enough – we must see our fight against drugs as interconnected with the social determinants for health.
These issues touch upon the very structures in society, and as we all know, structures are never easy to change. Still, they are subject to change everyday from every aspect of society from each and every one of us.
One should never underestimate that word – change. We haven’t – otherwise we would not be here today. That word has manifested itself clearly lately, on a global scale.
So let me hold this truth to be self-evident - a drug-free society is possible!
Here in Göteborg, we have made it clear – we are pursuing the drug-free city. What builds a sustainable city is indeed what builds a sustainable world.
Dear guests,
For this purpose, we must all come together – public institutions and the civil society. Above all, we must build our efforts on active citizenship.
Many of the important public health initiatives are the result of the activities carried out in the civil society.
In all aspects of drug policy, whether it be prevention, treatment or care - I believe that it is crucial we work together. We must all get every aspect of our societies, every citizen, actively involved, and we must provide the information and guidance necessary.
Our vision will not be realized quickly. The road lies long ahead, but I am convinced that we will neither tire nor falter.
We must all do our part for the promising future ahead. The forces that would have us fail are strong, and they are organized on an international scale. So our response must be more intense international cooperation in the fight against drugs. If we give up this fight, we give up the fight for that nonnegotiable human right – that of a right to a psychical and mental health.
We must together take on this challenge, and we must work through international organizations, with declarations and conventions. The basis for our work must be that of clear legal instruments on the international arena.
We must always give our full support to the work done by the UN in this regard, with excellent organizations such as ECAD assisting in carrying this work forward.
The conventions are the basis of our actions. The declarations we sign may be ever so well-written, but can never be reduced to a piece of document.
The signatures are the easy part. It is what follows that is the so-called tricky part – to fill the words with meaning, to bring the declarations to life.
Many are the voices crying out in disbelief of our work.
But I believe, in joint efforts you can turn near utopias into practical reality. Otherwise, we should not be in this business at all.
And that’s political leadership – striving for what will not be achieved in our lifetime, but for that which eventually will see the light of day in the generations to come.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We must work to realize the intentions of the declarations we sign everyday. So, there is more to do. But there is no other way of doing it except by extensive and on-going international cooperation. In the end, it is up to us (to make the change happen).
Thank you for listening, and I wish you very pleasant and interesting days here in Göteborg.
Thank you.
