ECAD was launched in 1994 as a counteract to the drug liberalisation movement in Europe. The Stockholm City Hall, spearheaded by Mayor Carl Cederschiöld, took the initiative. Among the first cities to sign the Stockholm Resolution were Paris, London, Berlin, Moscow and Reykjavik.

The Original Signatories Gathered in Stockholm, 1994

From the beginning, ECAD was a project financed by three Swedish counterparts, the National Board of Health and Welfare, the National Institute for Public Health and the City of Stockholm. In the beginning, three persons were employed to start the organisation, namely Paulina Lönnroth, Åke Setréus and Torgny Peterson. An Advisory Board was elected, consisting of representatives of ten member cities. Paulina, Åke , Torgny still work for ECAD, but of the original three financiers only the City of Stockholm is still left as strong supporter both regarding the daily work and financially.

Torgny Peterson, Paulina Lönnroth, Åke Setréus

At the Mayors' Conference in Athens 1996, it was agreed that the member cities should pay an annual membership fee, and thus contribute to the organisation's finances. This was an important step towards strengthening ECAD, not only financially but also by increasing the direct involvement of the member cities.
As you all know, the Annual Mayors Conference is the highest decision making body of ECAD. It is also the main ECAD event annually. It has never been difficult to get voluntary candidates to host the Annual Mayors' Conferences, which have so far taken place in Stockholm, London, Athens, Paris, Lugano, Malta, Cork, Belfast and now in Reykjavik.

Drugbox Information Package

Education and information are basic parts of every modern drug policy. Education and information are also the main methods we have chosen to reach our ultimate goal, a Europe free of drugs. Therefore we arrange and participate in a number of conferences and seminars in Europe each year. During the past year, we have had conferences in Plovdiv in Bulgaria, Aglantzia in Cyprus, Vilnius in Lithuania, St. Petersburg in Russia and Västerås just to mention a couple.

Joachim Erwin, Mayor of Düsseldorf, Signing the ECAD Resolution in Cork

In order to further spread the ECAD message and to render its work more effective, the first Regional ECAD office was launched in St. Petersburg in 1999. This was possible with help from SIDA, (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency) which continues to finance the St. Petersburg office. Also in St. Petersburg, the City of Stockholm has given us valuable support. Our regional office is located at the City of Stockholm representation office at the distinguished address of Nevski Prospekt 1.

George Zazulin ECAD Regional Director in Russia

George Zazulin is our man in Russia. During these past three years, he has built up an extensive network above all in the North-Western Russia but also in other parts of the country. Through the DrugBox project he has organised some 20 educational seminars and conferences in the region, and distributed some 10 000 information packages, so called DrugBoxes to teachers, the police, social workers and those working directly with drug prevention. Zazulin is also a member of the presidental administration's local drug commission, and in that capacity able to influence the local implementation of existing drug laws and regulations.

Launching of the ECAD Drug Political Centre, 2001

In October 2001 a major step towards ECAD:s development in Russia was taken. The new Drug Political Centre under the auspices of St. Petersburg State University was opened. A co-worker was hired to administrate this work. The picture shows the official opening with your Advisory Board present.
ECAD has a co-operation agreement with the St. Petersburg State University, stating that the University offers the office space and ECAD stands for the know-how regarding education of civil servants responsible for drug political programmes in their cities and municipalities.

The First Seminar

Russia as we all know is large country. One way of keeping contact between our 30 Russian member cities and other actors, is the website www.ecad.ru which has lots of visitors. It offers the Russian speaking visitors not only from Russia, but also from neighbouring countries, plenty of information material not previously accessible on the internet.
Encourage by the results in St. Petersburg, the advisory Board agreed to open another regional office. The capital of Latvia, Riga, was chosen. Since last autumn, our regional director in Riga, Vilnis Kipens, worked through the bureaucratic formalities and towards the end of the year, we were ready to launch ECAD in Latvia. The city of Riga kindly offers us office space at the Riga Drug Abuse Preventive Centre which is lead by Janis Strazdins. This guarantees a fruitful co-operation for benefit of both organizations. We hope for a rapid increase of the number of member cities in Latvia, and that Vilnis Kipens through his knowledge and background will be instrumental in influencing the Latvian drug policy in a positive direction.
Kipens has embarked his task by meeting as many actors in the drug field as possible, ranging everything from the President's drug political advisor and various mayors to school personnel.

Seminar For Police Officers The Baltic Sea Region

ECAD has been active in Lithuania for almost 4 years. Also the Action Against Drugs in Lithuania receives financial support from the Swedish SIDA. Our efforts in Lithuania, which we carry out in project form, aim among other things at influencing the decision makers to give drug issues higher priority.
Furthermore, we have donated second-hand computers and furniture for a value of some 300 000 Swedish crowns (if purchased in Lithuania). All this equipment has been directed to organisations which work with drug issues. Our most important counterpart is the Lithuanian AIDS Centre headed by Dr. Saulius Chaplinskas, who also is the member of the ECAD Advisory Board.

Saulius Chaplinskas Lithuanian AIDS Centre, Director

As the coordinator of the project in Lithuania, Dr. Chaplinskas has succeeded in linking up Swedish specialists with their Lithuanian counterparts. Of all these various interesting projects I find the Swedish organisation KRIS (Former Criminals Return to Society) contribution to establish sister organisations in Lithuania most exciting. KRIS is an association of former prisoners who help other released prisoners to readjust to the society and conduct a life without criminality and drugs.
Another approach to get out our message is through national networks. ECAD has at present active networks in Bulgaria, Norway and in Sweden. ECAD Sweden also has a Board and a regular platform to conduct its activities.

The Board of ECAD Sweden

In the beginning of this year we engaged a new co-worker, Lana Radionova, to edit and publish our newsletter. With her help we have been able to increase the number of issues which shall be 10 per year from now on. With a partly new technique, and added colour on ECAD:s yellow paper we hope that the newsletter will be more easily accessible.
Furthermore, we have another young woman, Camilla Rosenhaug as our new webmaster on project basis. She has been helpful with redesigning and up-dating our website. There will be much more focus on the ECAD website the next couple of years, and therefore it was necessary with a new design.
At www.ecad.net you will find, besides all our basic documents, also coming activities and information on what is going on in ECAD in general.
We also have put the UN Drug Conventions on the website in English, Swedish and Russian. As soon as we get them in additional languages, they also will appear on the website. We find it most important that these documents are easily accessible to all. Many countries have signed the UN Conventions on Drugs, but few seem to know or acknowledge what they actually stand for.

This is just a very short run-through to give you a picture of how we work.
You are most welcome to contact the Stockholm office at any time, and of course here in Reykjavik during the conference.

 
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