[paragraph contents] Itaca and EFDP
Itaca joined since from the beginning
European Forum on Drug Policy.
The idea of a permanent European forum on drug policy emerged at the time of the conference organised on 17 September 2003 at the European Parliament in Brussels on "European drug policy: strengthening the institutions / civil society partnerships".
The representatives of 11 European networks decided to set up a permanent, informal and open forum to develop the participation of the actors issued from the civil society in the definition and the promotion of the European drug policy and to optimise the impact of the local actions by encouraging the exchanges of information and of know-how, the transfer of the competences and the search for complementarity at a UE level.
Objectives of the EFDP
- To encourage the participation of the actors issued from the civil society in the definition and the promotion of the European drug policy
- To facilitate access to the spaces of debate to all those involved, concerned organisations and citizens
- To take part in the coordination of the exchanges and increase the transversality of the debates
- To promote the consensus points to the European citizens, the Member States and the international organisations.
- To encourage the participation of the civil society in the work of observation of the practices and of evaluation of the responses supplied by the public policies leads by the European institutions (Council, Parliament, the Commission, EMCDDA) and the Member States
- To optimise the impact of the local actions by encouraging the exchanges of information and of know-how, the transfer of the competences and the search for complementarity at a UE level
- To increase the accessibility and the legibility of information, to propose synthesis and to elucidate the essential points
- To initiate and support the emergence of European partnerships in the fields where those are developed insufficiently and in particular the partnerships of exchanges of good practices between local projects involving various actors (elected representatives, associations, police force, doctors, research workers...)
- To encourage the transverse dialogue between the various approaches with a complementarity aim (prevention, self-support, risk reduction, public security, research, etc...)
- To support the sustainable operation of the European networks of the civil society, in particular by the search for adapted systems of financing and the adoption of training for involved persons
- To take part in the mobilisation of resources to answer the emergency health situations, such as the explosion of the HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe.
For more information:
www.efdp.org
[paragraph contents] Itaca and The Beckley Foundation
Itaca Europe joins The Beckley Foundation Consortium
The Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Programme (BFDPP) aims to promote objective debate on the effectiveness, direction and content of drug policies at national and international level.
This non-governmental initiative brings together senior policymakers, leading academics and practitioners to assess the latest evidence of drug policy effectiveness in a spirit of objectivity and open debate. It does this through a discussion forum, an international "non-governmental organisation (NGO) consortium", an academic think tank, and a series of meetings and seminars.
PRINCIPLES UNDERPINNING THE BECKLEY FOUNDATION DRUG POLICY PROGRAMME
The aim of this programme is to assemble and disseminate information and analysis that supports the rational consideration of drug policies, and leads to the more effective management of the widespread use of psychoactive substances.
It is governed by the following principles:
That the current global drug control mechanism, (as enshrined in the three United Nations Conventions of 1961, 1971 and 1988), is not achieving the core objective of significantly reducing the scale of the market for controlled substances, such as heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and cannabis.
That the negative side effects of the implementation of this system may themselves be creating significant social problems.
That reducing the harm faced by the many individuals who use drugs, including the risk of infections, such as Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS, is not a sufficiently high priority in international policies and programmes.
That there is a growing body of evidence regarding which policies and activities are (and are not) effective in reducing drug use and associated health and social problems, and that this evidence is not sufficiently taken into account in current policy discussions, which continue to be dominated by ideological considerations.
That the current dilemmas in international drug policy can only be resolved through an honest review of progress so far, a better understanding of the complex factors that create widespread drug use, and a commitment to pursue policies that are effective.
That analysis of future policy options is unlikely to produce a clear 'correct' policy - what may be appropriate in one setting or culture may be less so in another. In addition, there are likely to be trade-offs between policy objectives (i.e. to reduce overall drug use or to reduce drug-related crime) that may be viewed differently in different countries.
That future policy should be grounded on a scientifically based scale of harm for all social drugs. This should involve a continuous review of scientific and sociological evidence of the biological harm, toxicity, mortality and dependency; the relation to violent behaviour; the relation to crime; the costs to the health services; the general impact on others; and the total economic impact of the use of each individual drug on society