On the 28th of April 1994, Lugano signed the European Cities Against Drugs agreement in Stockholm. The idea of this agreement was the result of the liberalizing mentality that was expressed in Europe at the convention in Frankfurt, in order to forcefully affirm the urgency of not dropping the guard with regards to the prevention of drug addiction, the treatment of drug addicts and the repression of the trafficking of narcotics.
For the city of Lugano, which had already been involved in an open war against narcotics, it was the beginning of a new period of awareness, caused by the fact that it did not want to feel itself alone because of restrictive policies with respect to the other members of the Swiss Confederacy who were already on the road towards a progressive liberalization in this area. The 178 European cities represented at the convention in Lugano on June 27, 1998, was the strongest sign of their support and their becoming aware of Lugano's initiative.
During these past ten years, Lugano has fought an open non-stop war against narcotics, not listening to the opponents of their decisive attitude and thus considerably limiting the public gathering of drug addicts in the city. It has also sustained the drug recovery centers and supported the installation of a new center for the cure of drug addicts, thereby amplifying the number of such centers already present in the territory.
An inter-community commission, purposely set up to deal with the problems of drugs and in constant communication with the representatives from the outlying communities has launched various preventive measures, not so much for the purpose of making evident the drug problem, but more for the purpose of encouraging young people to consider the positive alternatives to an empty life without purpose which leads a person to looking for easy solutions. As a service to the entire agglomerate, Lugano has opened the doors of its Institute to young people in trouble, offering company to boys and girls who are left in the city during the summer months. This initiative, which we call "Live your Neighborhood", has become a very effective means of prevention against drug addiction. Not a lot of discussions, but companionship between young people and adults (social workers and volunteers) which bridges the gap of juvenile loneliness, encouraging constructive relationships and preventing negative encounters and company. The necessity to progressively increase this offer is evident by the success it has been experiencing, based on the number of participants, which has had a yearly increase. Last year, because of the large number of participants, the program reached the equivalent of three thousand days of attendance (Lugano and its outlying communities have about forty thousand inhabitants). The interest this initiative has raised inside the Advisory Board, where it has been presented, has led to ECAD proposing it to all interested cities, introducing it as a link on its website.
All of the above is occurring in Lugano while the rest of Switzerland continues stubbornly on the road towards the tolerance of the consumption of drugs. In effect, the rejection in 1997 of the mass initiative of the people, called "Youth without Drugs", which provided for an uncompromising prohibition on all types of narcotics, has permitted the Federal Office of Public Health to accelerate the reviewing of the law on narcotics (a law that at the present time is being voted on by the federal government). It concerns the most permissive law that any country has until now decided to adopt.
If the revised law governing narcotics is accepted, heroin will earn the status of a recognized therapy (a unique happening in world-wide pharmacopoeia), and would exist without precise rules indicating how a person could avail himself of this therapy. In addition this law, while regulating the cultivation of light drugs, does not provide for punishment for the consumption of heavy and light drugs and for acts involving the preparation of such drugs for consumption.
Let us remember that in the only independent scientific evaluation of these programs, that is, the one carried out by the experts of WHO (the World Health Organization), the experts refused to consider the medical prescription of heroin as a proved alternative therapy.
The discussions concerning the revision of the law on narcotics in Switzerland have caused a flourishing of a real cannabis business in many Swiss cantons and especially in Ticino. It is a business that, because of the increase in the availability of the product, has caused a sharp increase in the consumption of cannabis in young adults and adolescents, with all the predictable consequences in their psychophysical balance. Fortunately, this devastating phenomenon has caused a real insurrection among the people, who have sustained during the last few months a decisive repressive intervention by the magistracy. Until then the magistracy had been somewhat undecided on what action to take (in the absence, unfortunately, of clear legal bases, which are now in existence thanks to sentences pronounced by the Federal Court.
As I have said, all of this is happening in Switzerland, while we are witnessing in the rest of Europe a unanimous second thought concerning all liberal drug policies. The Dutch are contemplating closing down their coffee shops and are having second thoughts about their liberal policies, since they are under pressure due to public opinion and information from the Centre for Drug Research of the University of Amsterdam. The latter is sending out alarm signals because of the constant increase in the consumption of all kinds of drugs by young people. Italy, after many years of a disorderly liberalizing of the consumption of drugs, furnishes us with some of the most interesting examples of recovery in all of Europe. Under the new government of Mr. Berlusconi, it has adopted a general program of declaring war on drug addiction, in which the community of Saint Patrignano is playing a very important role. Mr. Schröder's, Germany, while it allows itself to be deceived by accepting legal prescriptions for heroin, continues, however, to resolutely oppose the liberalization of light drugs. France has adopted a hard line by applying heavy fines to people who are caught driving while under the influence of illegal substances.
Switzerland could therefore become an isolated area of drug tolerance in a Europe that refuses legalization of drugs. In other words, it could become a centre for the production, commerce and illegal sale of drugs for the whole continent. This law, however, will not have an easy survival: In the event that it is voted upon affirmatively, a people's referendum has already been prepared and so there will be a battle. It will be a battle because the consumption of drugs threatens man's most precious gift, which is freedom. And until there exists a person who still has freedom in his heart, and we identify ourselves with this person, then we will be in the front lines of this battle.
We are leaving the Advisory Board because, after ten years, it is right to do so in order to encourage a succession of other cities to become a part of our decision-making board. Let it be well understood that we are not leaving The Conference of European Cities. We are leaving you as an inheritance our firm determination, which we recognize as coming from our association with you, to continue fighting, even in our particularly difficult situation.

Thank you.

 
 
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