Bonino calls for new line on illegal drugs

Date: 19/03/1998

By Simon Coss

EUROPEAN Commissioner Emma Bonino is calling on her colleagues to take a public stand against hardline prohibition as a way of tackling illegal drug use within the EU.

She wants the Commission to commit itself to what experts describe as 'harm reduction', and has persuaded President Jacques Santer to hold a debate on the highly controversial issue next month. But her proposal is likely to run into fierce opposition from within the Commission and from many member states.

Although the issue falls outside her remit, Bonino, who is responsible for humanitarian aid, fisheries and consumer affairs policies within the Commission, has long been an advocate of an approach to drugs policy based on harm reduction.

"What we need to do is recognise is that drugs are here to stay and that what we should be doing is trying to reduce the harm they cause within society. This is not about an all-out war on drugs," explained one Bonino aide.

Proponents of this approach argue it is sometimes better, for example, to ensure that heroin addicts have clean needles and receive their drugs from qualified doctors rather than to arrest and imprison them. Addicts often find illicit drugs are readily available in jail and face the added danger of contracting diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis from dirty hypodermic needles.

"To be honest, what we are really talking about is simply matching what we say with what we already do," said the aide, adding: "The US has a full-blown prohibitionist approach, but we in Europe - at least in reality - follow a harm reduction strategy. It is just that we never say this."

Santer is due to present a report on the issue to the full Commission early next month, but it is already clear that Bonino will not to find it easy to win over more conservative colleagues.

The institution's room for manoeuvre in framing drugs policy is very limited given that EU governments have the explicit right to pursue national strategies, and the two Commissioners who have some responsibility for policy in this area can hardly be described as radicals. Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin has repeatedly declared her opposition to decriminalising drugs and Health Commissioner Pádraig Flynn comes from a conservative background in Irish politics.

It also remains to be seen how national governments would react to any attempt by the Commission to take a stand on the harm reduction versus prohibition issue.

Any sign that the institution is moving towards a liberal attitude is sure to trigger protests that the Commission is exceeding its remit from countries such as France and Greece whose administrations take a conservative stance on the issue, while an endorsement of prohibitionism would upset liberal states like the Netherlands.