55% OF SMUGGLED COCAINE WORLD WIDE BEING TRANSPORTED BY EXPRESS SERVICES According to German Customs authorities, private transport services are being used "to a considerable extent" for the international transport of illegal drugs. The trend is clear: according to current estimates the sharp rise in the use of Express services and the quick turn around in the exchange of goods has led to a lessening of risk. This in turn has led to the rise in demand for such services by international drug smugglers. [continues 257 words]
The `Red-Green' Way To A More Liberal Drug Policy What all the experts have been demanding for a long time is now a step closer. The `Red-Green' federal government will hold to a more liberal path in its drug policy than its predecessor. Proceeding on the principle that addiction is a sickness, the newly appointed federal `drug czar', Christa Nickels, will emphasize education and "Assistance not Punishment". Christa Nickels is satisfied. Her office has been transferred from the Home Office to the Department of Health. That sends the signal that drug policy will henceforth be based on a humanitarian, health model, and not a law enforcement model. [continues 98 words]
The ECDP (European Cities on Drug Policy) will bring together 3,500 international experts to take part in a workshop in which participants will exchange ideas with a view to bringing pressure to effect a change in the drug laws. Founded in 1990, it is supported by members' contributions with assistance from the European Union. Advice will be offered to those towns which feel themselves constricted by the drug laws. "If a Greek town wants to set up a methadone program but lacks the know-how, we help mediate the contacts," explained the executive director, Susanne Schardt. [continues 70 words]
Bonn (dpa) - Christa Nickels, the 46 year old former State Health Minister, has been appointed to the post of Federal 'Drug Czar'. She has announced that she will be tackling drug addiction as a health rather than a law enforcement problem. She will strengthen prevention measures and will put assistance before punishment. "Addicts are sick people. It is our duty to help them. The criminal prosecution of drug dealers will remain, however, an important task." She said a bill would be drafted to place 'injection rooms' on a legal basis. Provision would be made to supply emergency relief to a carefully chosen group, for whom access to counselling and therapy would be provided. She said she would also concern herself with health problems arising from addiction to alcohol and tobacco. - --- Checked-by: Richard Lake [end]
The district of Lorraech has made formal application to the Ministry of Health for permission to participate in the projected drug model which has recently been the subject of heated controversy. This was confirmed by the district office on Friday, 20 November 1998. The Catholic Workers Party recently asked for 50,000 marks for the planning of 'guest rooms,' also known as 'injection rooms,' for drug addicts. The Social Democrat delegate, Joerg Lutz, said there was still no such project in Baden-Wuerttemberg. [continues 66 words]
Afterwards the Bonn Coalition wants to alter the illegal drugs statute An 'Emergency Room' will be opened in Sshwabingen next summer. The Catholic party threatens to hold a referendum After nearly 2 years of heated controversy, a plan for a realistic way forward has been proposed. It hasnow been officially announced that an emergency room could open in Schwabigen as early as next summer. Andrea Fischer's announcement of legal 'Fixing Rooms' has sparked further discussion. This will require altering the law as it now stands. Up to this point such establishments in Frankfurt and Hamburg have operated in a 'grey zone'. [continues 122 words]
ALCOHOL FORBIDDEN TO YOUNG PEOPLE UNDER AGE 18 Elfriede Koller, federal minister for drug policy, has begun a campaign to focus public attention on the dangers associated with "legal drugs" such as alcohol. Everyone knows someone who drinks too much, she says "Everyone knows someone who knows someone who is an 'alkie'. Does that cause us to reflect? No! Nearly 1,000 people die of alcohol abuse in Berlin every year, not including traffic mortalities. Does anyone get excited about that? No!" [continues 136 words]
Precis: Another German politician has broken with his party's hard line on (the war on) drugs policy and has come down decisively on the side of a trial of the Swiss model of heroin distribution to hard core addicts. His reasons are two-fold: on compassionate grounds, (it is not humane to lock up sick people on ideological grounds); and because the Swiss model has proved conclusively that it works; that it reduces significantly the social harm caused by the hard line policy. [continues 242 words]
BONN (November 8, 1998 08:56 a.m. EST) - Germany's new government said it will study the case made for legalizing possession of small quantities of soft drugs such as cannabis. "We're certainly going to look at it. There have been some interesting essays on this and an EU report on it, too," Interior Minister Otto Schily told Spiegel news magazine in an article made available on Sunday. The ecologist Greens, junior partners in the new coalition, have long been in favor of decriminalizing the use of soft drugs but Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats have so far resisted such a move. [continues 60 words]
WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - German scientists said on Tuesday they had found one reason why cocaine can cause a heart attack -- it causes production of excess amounts of a chemical that can choke off blood supply to the heart. Doctors know all too well that cocaine can overstimulate the heart and cause a heart attack. But they have not understood why -- or how to fight it. Writing in the journal Circulation, Dr. Rainer Arendt of the University of Munich and colleagues said they had pinned down one mechanism. [continues 196 words]
Traditional drug policy has failed. I believe we change the trend by prescribing heroin." This is not a legalise-it-disciple or a member of the Green party speaking, it is the police chief of the city of Bielefeld, Horst Kruse. Along with police chiefs and high-ranking medical officials, even conservative politicians nowadays demand a change in drug policy. A stock-taking on the occasion of today's German action day on drug policy. "And it does move, after all. Drug policy in Germany is currently loosening itself from a concrete and heavy inflexibility that lasted decades. The ideological walls are not yet broken, but they begin to crumble everywhere. The confession of faith that drug addicts could be cured with the forces of police and justice loses more and more of its faithful. [continues 763 words]
[followed by photos of the following people plus a statement from them:] Horst Kruse, Police chief Bielefeld: "Traditional drug policy has failed. I believe, heroin provieded by the state will initiate a change. Like it is in Zurich. Where drug addicts do not have to spend their time with chasing after drugs. Acquisitive criminality and offences form 20% of the all criminal offences which could then be curbed as well as social and health depravation. The problem of addiction would, of course, remain the same, but this is not to be solved by police efforts anyway." [continues 1001 words]
"The decision taken at the UN in 1990 was as ambitious as it was unworldly: the last decade of the 20th century should have been the ‘UN decade against drug misuse’. After a long debate, the UN diplomats passed a ‘global action programme’. The 100-topics-plan comprises the fight against smugglers, dealers, and money laundering, the eradication and prevention of poppy and coca cultivation as well as therapy measures for drug addicts. ‘An international drug free society’ was to be realised by the diplomats. [continues 1054 words]
German police chiefs joined medical experts and politicians yesterday in calling for an end to the war on drugs and the introduction of controlled distribution of heroin to addicts. A survey of parliamentarians showed support for a change in drug policy within all Germany's main parties. Campaigners for a new policy are confident that a change in government in September's federal election would herald a dramatic shift in official attitudes towards drugs - which could have a knock-on effect across Europe. [continues 317 words]
Heroin should be distributed to a select group of longstanding addicts, the German Medical Council unanimously decided last week. The council has now applied to the minister of justice to enable opiates to be legalised in a strictly medically controlled context. Dr Ingo Flenker, a member of the German Medical Council, said that the decision had been influenced by the recent results from Switzerland that showed the effectiveness of such an approach. Several other countries, including Australia, Denmark, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, are also considering following Switzerland's example. [continues 301 words]
BONN (Reuters) - Germany's opposition SPD ran for cover Monday after the Greens, their likeliest ally in any future government, demanded a threefold rise in gasoline tax, the end of NATO and the legalization of marijuana. Chancellor Helmut Kohl seized on the Green proposals for attack in an attempt to revive his flagging poll ratings and scare voters away from any ``red-green'' coalition. The Greens agreed at a weekend congress, held to prepare for September's general election, to triple gasoline taxes, wind down NATO, slash the size of the German army and legalize marijuana. The gas tax increase would more than triple the cost of gasoline over 10 years to five marks ($2.72) a liter or about $10.30 a gallon. [continues 268 words]
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - A member of parliament's Transportation Committee is suggesting members gauge their skills in driving tests while stoned on marijuana or hashish. Gila Altmann, of the left-leaning, environmentalist Greens party, said in an interview Sunday in the mass-circulation Bild daily that she simply wanted to highlight what she considers a double standard regarding alcohol. Alcohol, which is legal, was blamed for 4,000 automobile deaths in Germany last year, whereas illegal drugs were blamed for only 16 deaths, Altmann said. [continues 55 words]
Over the 20 years that he has been involved in counselling drug users and shaping drug policy in the city, 46-year-old Werner Schneider has succeeded where others had long given up. Convinced that Frankfurt desperately needed a special local government drug agency as the problem reached crisis point in the late 80s, Schneider approached the Green party with a press release which he himself had written in the run-up to the 1989 municipal elections. Although not affiliated to any political party, Schneider felt that the zero-tolerance approach advocated up to then had only exacerbated the problem. The press release was an appeal for a change of direction in drug policy at public level. A change of government brought a change of heart, and Schneider became director of the new drug agency introduced in 1989. Until his removal as director by Health Minister Albrecht Glaser (CDU) in December 1996, Schneider played an instrumental role in the introduction of an innovative programme which provided medical and social help for addicts and greater co-operation between police, public health authorities and politicians in the battle against drugs. The results have been phenomenal: The number of deaths of drug users has dropped by over 80 percent over the past five years. Through drug prevention schemes, the amount of young people drawn into the scene has dropped significantly. Drug-related crime such as mugging and theft is falling, and the spread of HIV among addicts is at a controllable level. Schneider has always believed that the only way to begin solving the drug problem is to pool expertise and experience across affected cities. It was for this reason that he pushed for regular international conferences and meetings which resulted in the signing of the Frankfurt Resolution in 1990. He was also one of the founders of the association of European Cities on Drug Policy. He was invited late last year to speak at a drugs conference in Colombia, source of much of the world's illegal drugs. Although he admits that, while the problem may be more under control in Frankfurt, the battle has not been won. Many dealers have moved to outlying areas. But the way ahead is through co-operation. And that is half the battle. [continues 1546 words]
DRESDEN, - A Kazakh man shot dead two German customs officers early Tuesday during a routine inspection of a bus at the Polish-German border, authorities said Tuesday. Two passengers were also wounded in the incident at the Goerlitz frontier crossing, about 60 miles east of Dresden. The suspected assailant was captured shortly after jumping out of a window and fleeing, a police spokesman said. He added that he believed the passengers on the bus -- on its way to Germany from Poland -- came mainly from Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Latvia. [continues 246 words]
Inside Germany
