DRUG PEACE FESTIVAL: OCCUPY UNODC !
VIENNA, Austria, March 9th - 16th 2012
With the slogan 'Occupy UNODC Vienna 2012', anti-prohibitionist associations and groups, drug-users and activists will gather in Vienna, Austria, for a great festival/gathering/manifestation against the current drug policies in concomitance with the annual meeting of the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drug and Crime).
'Fifty years after the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was launched, the global war on drugs has failed, and has had many unintended and devastating consequences worldwide. Use of the major controlled drugs has risen, and supply is cheaper, purer and more available than ever before. The UN conservatively estimates that there are now 250 million drug users worldwide.
Illicit drugs are now the third most valuable industry in the world, after food and oil, estimated to be worth $450 billion a year, all in the control of criminals. Fighting the war on drugs costs the world’s taxpayers incalculable billions each year. An estimated 10 million people are in prison worldwide for drug-related offences, mostly “little fish” – personal users and small-time dealers. Corruption amongst law-enforcers and politicians, especially in producer and transit countries, has spread as never before, endangering democracy and civil society. Stability, security and development are threatened by the fallout from the war on drugs, as are human rights. Tens of thousands of people die in the drug war each year...' (Read more)
From 9 to 16 March 2012, a Drug Peace Festival will take place during the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in the UN Vienna International Center.
The Festival is a spontaneous gathering of people who, along with millions of others throughout the world, want a profound change of drug policies. These policies should be based not on prohibition, but on public health, harm reduction, cost-benefit analysis and respect of human rights.
The organisers of the festival, united in the European Coalition of Citizens for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD), hold the UN and the governments of the world responsible for the daily misery produced by the war against drugs throughout the world. Since Adam and Eve, we know that prohibition does not work. The daily violence in societies such as Mexico or Afghanistan, the criminalisation of otherwise law obiding citizens, even most of the drug related health harm has nothing to do with drugs themselves, but with the fact that they are illegal.
More and more, citizens are developing their own alternatives to this failed policy, such as the Cannabis Social Clubs. In CSC’s collective cultivation takes place of user quantities for a collective of cannabis consumers who do not want to support criminal organisations, who wish to have a guaranteed product, and want to facilitate the access to a plant that has been used for thousands of years and which never killed anyone. Cannabis Social Clubs are operating in Spain and Belgium, and in preparation in several other countries.
Encod's message to the UN is: Reset your policy, open up to the proposals of citizens who are involved in the drug phenomenon and who are working to make the situation better, while your policies make it worse
Programme
Friday, March 9 :
Press Conference, 10-12 am
Place: Café Landtmann (Dr. Karl Lueger-Ring, 4 - Vienna)
Speakers :
1) Frederik Polak, Netherlands, Encod President
2) František Písařík – Czech Republic, Encod member
3) Dr. Kurt Blaas, Austria, Encod member
4) Enrico Fletzer, Italy, Encod member
5) Patrizia Moretti, Italy, mother of Federico Aldrovandi, a victim of Italian drug war
6) Alessandro Oria, Italy, Rototom festival
7) Dennis Lahey, Netherlands, Encod member
8) Boaz Wachtel, Israel, Encod member
Presentation of the film "To Smoke Cannabis Could Be Deadly", about police killings in Italy.
Afterwards: public discussion
17-20 pm
Place: Hörsaal II, Uni Wien, Universitätsstrasse 7
Saturday, March 10
Demonstration 'Reset Drug Policy'
14-17 pm
Place: from Schwedenplatz to Vienna International Centre
Sunday, March 11
Activist Plenum
Place and time: TBA
For more info: http://www.drugpeacefestival.com/
Email: office@encod.org
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