Latest News

After one day comes another... This happens every week, month and year in everyone’s life.
Is it not strange therefore that when the next day is the first one of a new year, we look a year ahead and make promises and we have certain expectations and hopes! I do not expect the year 2010 to be the one when we get a drug free Europe or even drug free cities.

However, I do hope that we will get more people and cities engaged and involved in this very important task. This would be an important step towards fewer drugs and in the end, maybe drug-free cities.

It is obvious that local politicians in every city has a lot of important  issues to deal with; care of the elderly and youngsters, unemployment, schools and the financial crisis, to mention a few. Criminality and social stigmatisation are other important responsibilities. We have to realise that illicit drugs and the ways of dealing with this problem are embedded in the social welfare sector of most cities and are only few of many tasks that our decision makers handle. Raising common awareness regarding illicit drugs and placing this issue on the top of political agenda may be one of the most important tasks for ECAD in the future.

No politician in Europe wants people to be abusers and very few, if any, want to legalise drugs because they do not care about the effects. Too many are nevertheless unaware of the huge costs illicit drugs cause for a single tax payer and society all in all. There is no doubt that drugs lead to gigantic problems in our cities, human suffering, enormous expenses and nuisance. Knowing this, we simply choose to act.

Being a member of ECAD is a statement you actually make, that is to deal with the drug problem. Methods or models used are of less importance, as long as they are knowledge- based. Some member cities have got very good prevention work; others have not. Some members are very engaged in giving professional treatment to abusers, which actually helps them being free from drugs; others are less engaged. How much cities prioritise our task differs a lot. To get as many cities acting against this problem as possible is, as I see it, ECAD`s biggest challenge.

I do hope that in 2010 we will get ECAD`s Advisory Network in function. This will help us in many ways, one of them is getting the issue higher up on the political agenda. Another contribution from the Advisory Network would be more interesting and better prepared conferences in the future.

ECAD plan to have four conferences a year and we will of course send out invitations for these occasions, but make it a habit to regularly check out ECAD`s website for news on this and other issues. We will make sure the website is informative, easier to use and a day-to-day instrument for you during 2010. You could still help us by giving comments on what you miss or send us your suggestions.

As you notice, I have some hopes and expectations for 2010, some of them are mentioned above.

Last but not least, I hope that you will all have a really fruitful and happy new year!

Jörgen Svidén,
ECAD Director