Mr President, I should first of all like to thank my fellow MEPs for making this report possible, as Parliament's views were not sought. Fortunately, however, Parliament did not see any reason why it, as a European political forum, should not give them. Following an initiative by Mr Cappato, which was backed by 108 MEPs, Parliament opted to let the Member States and the representatives of the European Union know its opinion as to what the efforts should be for the United Nations Ministerial Conference taking place next week in Vienna. It is an important conference. It will discuss strategies for, and progress achieved in, vigorously combating all drug abuse. It is really very strange, therefore, that the efforts of governments have not been the subject of intense debate in the national parliaments. The zero tolerance approach that emerges from the three relevant UN conventions is not undisputed, after all. The conventions date from 1961, 1971 and 1988. In 2003, however, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is making known that virtually all of the Member States of the EU have developed alternative strategies. They are not going for prohibition pure and simple, but are trying to prevent the harm caused by drug abuse with the use of clever methods. I think that this is at the heart of the matter. Different drugs have different groups of users. A heroin addict, for example, often seeks oblivion, being unable to cope with life. Someone who smokes a joint, on the other hand, is not usually a desperado. You or I may have a glass of wine with our meal tonight, while many young people use the second most popular stimulant in Europe: cannabis. Ecstasy users are a different group entirely. That little tablet forms part of a specific youth culture, whose motto is that it is nice to let your hair down at the weekend, as long as you are up early again on Monday. My conclusion is, therefore, that lumping all drugs and drugs users together will not provide a solution. Furthermore, I am convinced that stricter prohibitions will actually increase the influence of organised crime. For example, it is true that the Netherlands is an exporter of Ecstasy, but it only became so after the Dutch Government started to crack down on it, and, as a result, it fell into the hands of the hardened criminals of the ‘amphetamines mafia’. The Netherlands was rather too small a market for their liking, so they went on to export it. I know that not everyone in Parliament will subscribe to my analysis. How to deal with drug abuse and how to fight organised crime are topics for political debate. This debate should not just be based on ideology and pipe dreams, however, but on reality: how to deal with reality; the diverse realities. I have opted, as a rapporteur, to put down on paper a recommendation that will help that political debate, in particular, on its way. It was not my intention to come up with a position on the best method for combating drug abuse. Instead, I opted – and this has the support of a majority in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs – to argue in favour of a careful evaluation of the effectiveness of the UN Conventions on drugs. I should like to say to the opponents of my report – and here I am looking at the Group of the European People’s Party , in particular – that calling for evaluation does not automatically entail a change in the UN Conventions. We do, however, have to be prepared to have a good look at those Conventions. Those who are convinced that a repressive approach really does have such a tremendous effect do not have anything to fear, either, because they no doubt think that zero tolerance will be the outcome of this evaluation and that that will also be the recommendation that is made. I do not think that that is the solution, but an evaluation will in any case be able to shed some light on the matter. In debates I have been accused of extremism, and I fully accept that description when it comes to my own ideas on dealing with drug abuse. We are after all talking about a debate on an important topic, and you can think what you will about my views. I do not, however, accept that label with regard to this report; as the essence of this report is a rational recommendation, an evaluation. It is an evaluation followed by a conference of the United Nations in 2004 to discuss the conclusions resulting from it. It is a limited recommendation, therefore, and I hope that you can see your way to supporting it. My final point concerns the classification of drugs. The evaluation will of course be important in the long-term, and in the short-term it is important that we now agree on a reclassification of drugs. After all, cannabis and heroin are currently in the same category, and I really think that we can agree that the use of heroin does more harm than smoking a joint. I propose therefore reiterating, as a Parliament, what we decided two months ago – in the Malliori report on the prevention and reduction of risks associated with drug dependence – and requesting that drugs be classified according to the scientific evidence of risk to human health.

Political group: Verts-ALE