Resolution
from ECAD (European Cities Against Drugs)
 
ECAD 10th Anniversary Mayors' Conference
Stockholm
May 15-17, 2003
 

This conference of drugs professionals and Local Authority members, across and beyond Europe, expresses its serious concern at proposals for Western Australia's drug policy, including but not limited to :

  • Permitted possession of up to 30 grams of cannabis, and home cultivation of two cannabis plants of any size.
     
  • Penalty for the above reduced to a 'ticket' fine or verbal warning, with no criminal record.
     
  • Altered emphasis away from prevention and towards 'harm reduction.'
Scientific and observational evidence increasingly shows significant harm from cannabis use. High prevalence of youth suicide in Western Australia, known to be often linked to cannabis-induced psychoses and depression, heightens our concerns.

This conference deplores these proposals, and strongly recommends the Western Australian State Government to utilise instead a strategy based on integrated prevention, enforcement and treatment. Harm reduction should be confined to known users undergoing intervention or treatment, which itself has cessation of use as its eventual goal.

Supported by General Assembly of the Conference, 16th May 2003
Signed on behalf of ECAD Mayors Conference

 
 
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