Most Of The World's Safe Injection Sites Are In Europe, And The German City Leads The Parade.

Olle has come to Frankfurt this Thursday, as he does every week, to do his shopping. The 25-year-old information-tech student buys a week's supply of heroin near the Hauptbahnhof, the central train station, to take back to Mannheim, where he lives with his parents an hour's train ride away.

Before he heads home on the late-afternoon train, he walks over to 38 Elbestrasse. Next door to the Cafe Bistro La Bella, and across the street from one of this area's many legal brothels, is a tall, narrow, five-storey building built in classic old-European style. It's indistinguishable from its neighbours except for the frosted glass on the front window and a small plaque on the wall that says Drogennotdienst: Drug Emergency Service.

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2.3 Tons Of Powder Seized -- Company Imported Drug Precursor From China

Hamburg, gateway to the world -- this is also true for international drug trade. For at least a year, the city was as hub for business in the dangerous drug precursor "PMK", the powder from which ecstasy is manufac-tured. Now, police and customs investigators shut down a Hamburg company than controlled imports and exports of the illegal chemical. About 2.3 tons "PMK" (Phenyl-Methyl-Keton) have been seized. This would have been sufficient to produce about 30 million ecstasy pills -- street value: more than 500 million marks ($230 million US dollars).

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"How many of our politicians are drug addicts?" was the headline in Berlin tabloid BZ yesterday after traces of cocaine were discovered in toilets used by elected officials and civil servants in Berlin's Reichstag parliament building.

It was more a case of red faces than white noses around the parliament yesterday after the revelation by television station SAT1 that 22 of 28 toilets tested were contaminated with cocaine.

"It's unbelievable what was in this report. The toilets where cocaine was found are cleaned every day, sometimes even twice," said parliamentary spokesman Mr Hans Hotter, choosing to defend the professionalism of the toilet cleaners rather than the habits of the toilet users. The federal government first dismissed the findings as "unbelievable", but the federal public prosecutor yesterday announced it was launching an investigation into the matter.

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BERLIN - Ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic funneled more than $100 million into foreign accounts and was involved in drug trafficking, Germany's foreign intelligence agency charged yesterday.

"Such a fortune cannot have been amassed by legal means," said Lydia Rauscher, spokeswoman for the Federal Intelligence Service.

"Numerous hints let us recognize Milosevic and his entourage as an organized crime structure, engaged in drug trade, money laundering and other crimes," a newspaper quoted the report as saying.

The intelligence agency refused to release the report, but a spokeswoman broadly confirmed the newspaper Bild's account.

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BERLIN, Oct. 16 - Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, placed more than $100 million in foreign accounts and was involved in drug trafficking, Germany's foreign intelligence agency has charged in a secret report.

"Numerous hints let us recognize Milosevic and his entourage as an organized crime structure, engaged in drug trade, money laundering and other crimes," the Bild newspaper quoted the report as saying.

A spokeswoman for the intelligence agency broadly confirmed the newspaper's account. "Such a fortune cannot have been amassed by legal means," Lydia Rauscher, the spokeswoman for the Federal Intelligence Service, said today. The report, prepared for the German government, says that Mr. Milosevic has sent $100 million to Switzerland alone, she said.

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Dancers From All Over Cram Berlin Streets For World's Biggest Street Party, Love Parade

BERLIN -- More than 1 million people danced to the booming beat of techno music Saturday at the annual Love Parade, turning central Berlin into a sea of sweaty bodies, shaggy pink outfits and shrill whistles.

High-spirited youths from across Europe and beyond jammed the route through the Tiergarten park for the world's biggest techno rave street party, uniting behind its theme of music as a peaceful, globe-spanning force.

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Berlin - Driven by thundering beats, about 1 million techno music fans packed the streets of central Berlin yesterday for the annual Love Parade - the world's biggest dance party of its kind.

A high-spirited mass of people, most from Germany but many from abroad, jammed Berlin's main axis stretching west from the Brandenburg Gate and past the Victory Column with its golden angel on top. Organizers expected the crowd to reach a record 1.7 million people.

"It's cool, it's outrageous and everyone is having a good time," said Andrew Lin, a 21-year-old from New Jersey who dropped in on the party during a European trip.

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German junkies get clean, safe places to shoot up -- courtesy of their city governments.

FRANKFURT, Germany -- "Bleib immer locker" (Always stay mellow) says the sign in the door, an oddly glib piece of advice for the junkies entering a government-funded center to shoot up drugs.

A cross between a youth hostel and a run-down hospital clinic, the place has an antiseptic stench. German hip-hop is playing on a small boom box in the corner. In the waiting area, a dozen men and women are passed out in chairs or on the floor or else twitching nervously, awaiting their turn to inject. Once their names are called, each receives a steel tray containing a new syringe, cotton pads, a sterilized spoon, and a packet of distilled water -- everything needed to prepare and inject heroin or cocaine. This they do in the next room, sitting in plastic chairs where others are stripping off their pants in search of a spare vein, or just leaning back and letting the high set in.

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Techno sound booms through the basement hollow. Sweating bodies dance to fast beats. The crowd is frenzied. It's Saturday night, just after midnight. The techno scene is celebrating it's weekend at the Tunnel club on Grosse Freiheit [red light district, tr.]. Then the sudden shock: bright lights, an amplified voice booming "This is the police. Nobody moves. We're taking over." It's a drug raid, and the party's over. Seventy police officers storm the club in seconds. Nobody gets out, nobody gets in. Every person on the premises is searched. Those who offer any resistance have to stand up agaist the black wall and spread arms and legs. Pills are thrown on the ground, ditched at the last minute. The police confiscate 700 Ecstasy pills, 43 packs of speed and 40 bags of other, yet unidentified drugs. Twenty clubbers are temporarily arrested.

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A tip had brought the drug squad on the trail of the two Hamburg men (aged 54 and 49). On monday, the 54-year-old man was arrested in a parking lot near Alster Lake. During a search of his car police found 85,000 pills that he had just picked up from his accomplice in Wilhelmsburg [south part of the city]. The 49-year-old man was arrested a few hours later. Another 16,500 pills were later found hidden in his yard. Investigators believe that the drugs were brought to Germany from Holland by the two suspects.

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GROSSWEEDEN - The police in Lauenburg county checked cars leaving the "Ziegelei" club in Grossweeden last Saturday night between two and eight o'clock. 200 officers working four check points stopped a total of 1118 vehicles. 40 drivers had to submit to a blood test. Twelve drivers were found to be intoxicated from drinking too much alcohol. In 95 cases, charges for drug posession were filed. Quantities of heroin, cocaine, Extasy [sic] and cannabis were confiscated.

This was the first time for the police to use the drug detection device "Drugwipe", which detects drugs in sweat.

[end]

BERLIN: Germany’s Parliament yesterday legalised drug injection rooms that have sprouted in German cities to provide addicts with clean needles, reversing a policy upheld by the former conservative government.

The upper house approved a compromise law that won crucial support from some conservative-led states by emphasising that addicts who get the needles also need counselling. The lower house had passed the measure on Friday.

Authorities have tolerated 13 so-called "shooting galleries" in major German cities for some time, but the rooms have been technically illegal.

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BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's lower house of parliament legalized ``injection rooms'' for drug addicts Thursday against the opposition of conservatives who argued that users need treatment instead.

If approved by the upper house Friday, the measure passed by the governing center-left coalition would reverse a German drug control policy that has stood for years.

Authorities have tolerated 13 so-called ``shooting galleries'' in major German cities for some time, but the rooms -- where heroin addicts can pick up clean needles and inject themselves with the narcotic -- technically are illegal.

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Frankfurt/Main (dpa) -- The Frankfurt police have achieved a sweeping blow against Kosovo-Albanian Heroin dealers. In close cooperation with other European countries they have arrested 77 involved persons, police reported yesterday. Five of the arrested are thought to be leading heads of the drug ring.

[end]

HAMBURG, Germany, Dec 29 (Reuters) - A computer hacker turned a staid German police Internet page into a site promoting marijuana and pleasure toys for sadists, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

``I don't find this funny at all,'' said Adalbert Halt, a spokesman for the police union in the German state of Hessen whose site was altered.

The hacker, whose identity is unknown, changed information about the regional police offered on the Web site to advertise a ``marijuana cafe'' and a ``sado shop.''

Police undid the changes later in the day.

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BERLIN, Aug 28 (Reuters) - More than 50,000 people took part in Berlin's third annual ``Hemp Parade'' on Saturday, taking to the streets of the German capital to call for the legalisation of cannabis.

Carrying posters urging politicians to legalise the drug, the demonstrators called for a relaxation of laws on its possession.

``The German law is stupid in many points and we are demanding complete legalisation...for medical and recreational uses,'' said Martin Muencheberg, a press spokesman for the parade's organisers.

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FRANKFURT - police said Friday that at least 25 border guards based in the western town of Frankfurt were being investigated on suspicion of drug-trafficking.

Chief police investigator Jochen Zahn told a news conference that the border police officers based at the city's international airport and downtown railway station were suspected of dealing in cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, and marijuana.

"It can not be ruled out that other border guards aren't also involved," he said.

Three of the suspects, all aged between 20 and 25, have been remanded in custody pending trial.

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Worried about a national rise in drug-related deaths, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Cabinet approved a bill Wednesday that would allow states to set up centers where heroin addicts could go for a safe fix.

Christa Nickels, the government's drugs policy adviser, said the proposed law would clear up a legal grey area for street workers who ''stand with one leg in jail when they provide survival help.''

She noted that the number of deaths related to consumption of illegal drugs rose to 798 in the first half of 1999, compared to 735 in the same period last year.

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There are no ‘magic keys’ - Most addicts are dependent on alcohol.

Writing in the Stuttgarter Nachrichten (http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de) Frank Schwaibold reports that most addicts are dependent on alcohol.

(Translator’s note: this could come as a surprise to those who maintain that "There is no such thing as an illness called ‘alcoholism’.)

Stuttgart - In Baden-Wuerttemberg there are around 420,000 addicts, 60% of whom are dependent on alcohol. In 1997, according to figures published in the 1996/98 addiction report, 1644 deaths resulted from the excessive consumption of alcohol. (Full report available at the website given above.) .............

The same paper (and others) carry reports of the 'cocaine scandal' reported in 'The Times' (of London), (and in glaring headlines in the mainline UK newspapers,) involving Prince Edward's close friend, Tom Parker-Bowles. It is reported that 'The Queen is not amused'.

[end]

(Translator's note: The following might be used to support an appeal to the churches to adopt a more truly Christian stance. They have been getting a free ride. It is time they were targeted, in my opinion.)

Wilfried Goebels writes in the 'Aachener Zeitung' (http://www.aachener-zeitung.de) on the withdrawal of the CDU from its hard-line position against heroin distribution.

Duesseldorf. The CDU is pulling back from its sharp rejection of so-called ‘fixing rooms’ for hard-core addicts. At a drug conference in Duesseldorf on Monday, leading representatives of the state and federal caucuses supported a prejudice-free discussion of fixing rooms and state controlled heroin distribution to hard-core addicts.

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