CHRONICLE by ECAD Director Jörgen Svidén
February 2009: 16th ECAD Mayors' Conference:
After the encouraging and stimulating 16th ECAD Mayors’ Conference in Göteborg, with inspirational lecturers and fruitful discussions, I feel new energy and reinforced ambitions! I would like to take this opportunity to thank all conference participants for making it such a successful event. ECAD started in 1994 as a reaction to some larger cities in Europe wanting to liberalise international drug policy and legalise some illicit drugs. There is no such movement today so the question might be asked: Is there a need for ECAD then? Yes indeed! We may not have the same movement among cities like in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but we have an extensive propaganda on the Internet along with the fact that several organisations and even political parties in European governments are pledging for a more liberal policy. Besides that: even if there were no such movement at all – and therefore no need for a strong voice for a restrictive policy – there would still be a need for inspirations on what is best practice in our field. In order to fight drugs efficiently, we need each others’ help with commitment, influences and examples. We can be sure that we are going to face challenges in the year to come, mostly because of the never ending trends’ fluctuations in policy making on illicit drugs in Europe. A lot can be said about that; some of it can be regarded as good, other as bad. It has always been this way but my hope is that we will see more of the positive trends and less of the negative ones in the future. In 2008, we noticed renewed discussions on injection rooms and legal prescription of heroin in some countries. These sort of solutions are as quick as heroin itself, i.e. not so humane and not that good in the long run. We saw also a rather positive development in other countries, for instance that cannabis is – again – regarded more seriously in United Kingdom or that many cities in the Netherlands are reducing the number of, or even closing down all, coffee shops. The discussions we have within ECAD are both productive and necessary. It is important with a strong voice in Europe against legalisation and liberalisation, but this is not enough. As I see it, membership in ECAD should not only be a statement, you should also gain from it. In this sense, we need to develop. This could also be a successful way to recruit new cities, which would make our voice even stronger. Several speakers, if not everyone who took the floor in Göteborg, talked about the necessity of knowledge-based policies, methods and programmes. ECAD strives to strengthen this part of our activities and to advance our efforts in supporting member cities with best practice, regardless of the trends. This, with continuous support to the UN Conventions and restrictive drug policy. A great responsibility for developing of ECAD lies on me as an executive and on my office, but also on the member cities. ECAD requires active contributions from its members in regard to delivering constructive experiences and best practice, which can and should in a more systematic way be spread through ECAD’s information channels and meetings. We have high ambitions but in order to reach them ECAD as organisation needs more engaged, active members burning for the sake of drug-free Europe. It should not, for instance, be too high of a demand for each member city to recruit at least one neighbour city to ECAD. By doing this, we will double the number of members to over 500 cities! In the end of 2009 we will evaluate how long we have come in our task of strengthening and expanding ECAD. November 2008: ECAD in the World of Today ECAD today, 16 years since its start, is a well established organisation in the anti-drug field. We have some 270 member cities and we are well-known around Europe. For our future development it is important to analyse how we can further support our members in their anti-drug everyday work. ECAD stands at a crossroad. Can we continue working the same way as we have done it during the past 16 years? I think not. We have to contribute more and deliver a merit value to our member cities. ECAD member cities get access to a broad, useful network of decision makers throughout Europe. It is of great importance that these people have an arena where they can meet, share experiences and get impressions. It is also vital to represent a common standpoint from leading politicians throughout Europe that manifests a united front against illicit drugs. This is offered by ECAD today and is of course a merit value for ECAD’s members. ECAD is the voice of our member cities on the international arena, within United Nations and European Union. ECAD, within its frameworks, should become an organization STRONGLY associated with KNOWLEDGE. ECAD is an organisation that takes its starting point in facts and data, not opinions. When ECAD as an organisation has an opinion in any specific issue, it is based on available evidence. We know that it is not easy for decision makers to get sufficient information about evaluated methods or best practice. Nobody expects them to be experts on what is going on around the world in anti-drug field, but you can expect that ECAD - with its broad and established network - is! Researchers are often accused for being poor in spreading their results. This gap is bridged by ECAD and we will become even better in doing that. ECAD stimulates and updates decision makers in the cities to learn more about what is useful in the fight against illicit drugs on the municipal level. This role is not taken by any other organisation Europe, EU nor UN. I am aware that this is easier said than done, but we work hard to make it happen.
We are in the process of improving our website. We are preparing stimulating seminars and conferences. We are thinking of creating a council of researchers in order to help us with both new knowledge and evaluation. We are appreciating input and active engagement from our member cities.
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