Fight against drugs: European action plan 1995-1999

In adopting this resolution, the European Parliament called on the Council to adopt the European Union action plan to combat drugs for the period 1995-1999 by giving as much attention to prevention and harm reduction as to the laws and penalties relating to drugs and drug trafficking. According to the EP, this action plan should tackle all links in the chain, from production to education, health and the rehabilitation of drug addicts. It recommended, in particular, that the Commission and the Council study and give serious consideration to possible alternatives to strategies pursued so far, as too often the policies implemented to combat drugs did not make a sufficient distinction between consumers and traffickers. Efforts should therefore be concentrated on cracking down on organised crime which ran trafficking in illicit drugs and by offering more health care programmes for drug addicts. In particular, Parliament called for: - a further increase in police and customs cooperation; - the conclusion of the Europol Convention before the Cannes European Council and the creation of an effective central system within Europol for collecting information concerning the activities, methods and development of organised crime; - coordination of Europol's activities with Interpol and the UNDCP; - arrangements whereby goods seized from persons convicted of drugs-related crimes could be declared forfeit; - measures to simplify and speed up the extradition process between Member States; - measures to tackle money laundering more effectively at Community level. It also called for: - a survey into the state of drugs and drug addicts within prisons with a view to finding alternatives to prison for drug users where other crimes were not involved; - a comparative study of the risk-reduction policies being carried out by cities such as Frankfurt, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Zurich (European Cities on Drug Policy) and the stricter drug control policies being carried out by cities such as Berlin, Dublin, London, Paris, Madrid and Stockholm (members of the "European cities against drugs"). The EP stressed that the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs should be provided with all the technical, human and financial resources it needed in order to operate satisfactorily and called on the 1996 IGC to bring the fight against drugs within the remit of Community policy. The EP emphasised the importance of providing an alternative in supplier countries and pointed out that the GSP should be of direct benefit to impoverished farmers who had previously made a living through drugs. The elimination of crops by aerial methods should only be carried out with due regard to environmental safety and to the living conditions of the local population. Any cultivation of narcotic crops for the first time in new areas needed to be dealt with effectively as this had nothing to do with the "traditional" livelihood of local farmers. Furthermore, any trade agreements made by the EU with producing countries should take into account their willingness to reduce the areas under cultivation. The EP also called for the allocation of confiscated funds firstly to improve prevention policy and harm reduction programmes and secondly to provide better police and customs resources. Finally, it recommended that a conference be arranged to involve the Member States, the European Parliament, the Commission and other relevant bodies to discuss the present situation in the European Union, with emphasis on demand reduction and aid policy assessment. �