Strasbourg, 13 May 2002

Dear colleagues,

During the 1994-99 term a group of Parliamentarians was formed at the European Parliament and in some National Parliaments with the aim of opposing prohibition on drugs. The Group, called Parliamentarians for Antiprohibitionist Action (PAA) tabled a resolution, which was eventually endorsed by 61 MEPs, triggering an important debate on the issue of drugs at the EP.

Since then, prohibitionist policies on drugs have increasingly involved international institutions. A first assessment of the UN decennial plan to eradicate drugs from the face of the earth by 2008, has been scheduled for March 2003 in Vienna. This world campaign sees the active role of the European Union and its Member States. During the first five years of implementation of the declaration adopted at the Special Session of the UN General Assembly there has been an increase in production, consumption as well as trafficking of all kinds of narcotics also in areas of the world that at the end of the 1990s did not know any of those activities. This spectacular increase has provoked not only deaths and the spread of diseases among consumers, but it has also augmented the profits for criminals who, in entire regions of the world can destabilize their Governments with drug money, and ultimately has financed world-wide terrorist networks.

Many today, also within police circles and scientist environments, are asking politicians the adoption of antiprohibitionist reforms, and are promoting different approaches to different substances and geographical contexts. Today, we are asking you to join the group of the Parliamentarians for Antiprohibitionist Action to coordinate our initiatives at the European level and beyond, regardless of our nationalities or political affiliation
.
Cordially,

Marco Cappato (NI, Co-ordinator) • Chris Davies (ELDR) • Daniel Cohn-Bendit (V) • José Marìa Mendiluce (PSE) • Pernille Frahm (GUE)